[maisiewilliams]

10 Female Written Short Stories Everyone Should Read

I have seen a post circulating for a while that lists 10 short stories everyone should read and, while these are great works, most of them are older and written by white men. I wanted to make a modern list that features fresh, fantastic and under represented voices. Enjoy!

1. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri — A couple in a failing marriage share secrets during a blackout. 

2. Stone Animals by Kelly Link — A family moves into a haunted house.

3. Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell — Women are sold by their families to a silk factory, where they are slowly transformed into human silkworms. 

4. Call My Name by Aimee Bender — A woman wearing a ball gown secretly auditions men on the subway. 

5. The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July — A woman wakes up to a noise on the stairs. 

6. Brownies by ZZ Packer — Rival Girl Scout troops are separated by race. 

7. City of My Dreams by Zsuzi Gartner — A woman works at a shop selling food-inspired soap and tries not to think about her past. 

8. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor — A family drives from Georgia to Florida, even though a serial killer is on the loose. 

9. Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo — A group of children, led by a girl named Darling, travel to a rich neighborhood to steal guavas. 

10. You’re Ugly, Too by Lorrie Moore — A history professor flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

[astrangewoman]

I LOVE THIS POST!!

I’d like to add:

11. Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor

12. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (this one is my favorite short story of all time)

13. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

14. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

15. Désirée’s Baby by Kate Chopin

16. The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

17. Impressions of an Indian Childhood by Zitkala-Ša

(I wanted to put little summaries for each of them, but I’m afraid I’d spoil the whole story if I did!)

[ellydash]

adding a few more! all by women of color, & the first four were published within the last few years

18. “My Dear You,” Rachel Khong — love, loss, & absurdity in the afterlife

19. “The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado — a feminist retelling of the folklore story “The Green Ribbon”

20. “Inventory,” Carmen Maria Machado — one woman’s retrospective list of her life’s sexual encounters

21. “Boys Go to Jupiter,” Danielle Evans — what happens after a white college student poses for a photo in a Confederate flag bikini

22. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” ZZ Packer — a Black woman attends Yale University

[izzychao]

oh i have some of these too! many are science-fiction or science-fantasy, because the woman in those genres are severely under-represented ! The first two authors are slightly older, but their works are so important in the development of the roles of women in scifi as a genre so!

23. “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “Mountain Ways” by Ursula K. Le Guin — The first is a study of philosophical questions similar to the trolley problem, told in very loose form. The second is a science-fantasy story about two women navigating love and sexuality in their society’s polyamorous marriage rituals. But honestly you should read all of Le Guin’s short stories and novels, she’s amazing.

24. “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler — One of my all-time FAVORITE short stories, about a future where humans live alongside large insect-like aliens, and serve as hosts for their eggs and larval young. It’s gruesome, gory, unsettling, and honestly pretty horrific but it’s really wonderful–if you can handle horror in your stories I highly recommended it. Butler’s novels are also wonderful, please check them out if you can (not all of them are this unsettling)

25. “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan — A trans allegory in which future humans go through surgery to become invertebrate sea creatures (cephalopods and arthropods mostly) in order to better work in space. Wonderfully weird in so many ways.

26. “From the Lost Diary of Treefrog7” and “The Palm Tree Bandit” by Nnedi Okorafor — Lost Diary is a story about a woman and her husband exploring an alien jungle told through research log-style journal entries. Very much survival horror scifi. Palm Tree Bandit is told as a mother reciting a story to her daughter as she braids her hair, about her great-grandmother who started a kind of small revolution for women in Nigeria. Nnedi’s novels and other short stories, as well as her works within the comics industry, are all fantastic, so look into her more if you can!!!

[sosuperawesome]

Lara Hacker on Instagram / Etsy

[doctorbluesmanreturns]

I don’t hate the concept of ebooks per se but what bothers me is how our society is shifting from actually owning entertainment in tangible forms like books and CDs and DVDs and game discs, to having to download everything so basically we’ll get to the point where everything is intangible and all of our property can be taken away by a website crash.

[fannish-snailien-deactivated202]

#yeah this is mostly the problem#and stuff like. ebooks that can only be read on one companys app#music that can only be streamed from one place and doesnt let you actually download the files#stuff like that#like sometimes its like you cant tangibly have anything even your own digital file#idk where i was going with this but yeah its capitalism (via @ouidamforeman)

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Almost exactly ten years ago, you may remember, Amazon came stealthily along and deleted e-copies of 1984 (no seriously, they did) and Animal Farm from people’s Kindles — copies they’d already paid for and downloaded — because it turned out that there was a rights problem with the e-publisher. Jeff Bezos wound up apologizing all over himself and taking it all back and promising never to do that ever again, but the fact remains that Amazon has some kind of access to your Kindle files and can literally remove them, if they feel like it, which is downright creepy, and if it were your computer you would not like it one little bit.” 

https://popula.com/2019/06/30/own-paper-books/

[bookphile]

I’m sure that someone already said this in the notes, but you guys are aware that you don’t actually own e-books, e-movies, etc. Right? What you’re purchasing is a license to have that file on your device. Not the actual object. 

I’ve also posted about it multiple times.

Plus, Amazon, Google, Kobo, B&N are all explicit in their user agreements that they have the right to terminate your account, seize your library, and delete anything and everything off of your account at any time, for any reason, without giving you anything in return, including paying you back. 

Like, it super scary that they not only can do that, but are legally allowed to. 

I’ve seen people suggesting using the program called Calibre  to transfer and  convert your files from whatever program you purchase them on, so that if one of those companies do decide to be a dick, you will retain your e-copies safe and sound on your hard drive. Just don’t be an asshole and post those copies to pirate sites. 

So read your content agreements and digital ownership laws cause they’re not great. 

[rsfcommonplace]

Paper books still have their uses.

[branch-and-root]

And that very fact, my friends, is why products like Epubor Ultimate DRM removal tool (my personal choice) are legal to write and sell and use. 

https://www.epubor.com/drm-removal-tools.html

Because yes, the terms of service sure say that. But every time they’ve /tried/ on a significant scale, they’ve been challenged and backed down. And every time they tried to stop DRM removal tools from being made and sold, they’ve failed. What they’re doing relies on keeping off enough toes that a significant bloc never gets pissed enough to push through a class action suit.

So, yes, absolutely, know this and, if you (like me) have book-gasms over having my library of 2000 books always at my fingertips to read whatever I like, get Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) and then get one of the DRM removal applications. Jailbreak your library, back it up in at least three locations, and then pass this tip on in the joyful knowledge that all the major distributors are praying you don’t tell anyone else how easy this is.

[desperatelyseekingsanity1-deact]

[anti-capitalistlesbianwitch]

A soft no is still a no.

[5starglitch]

I’ll retweet a million times

[knightofthesevenfandoms]

THANK YOU. I’m at a loss here. I’ve got a creeper in my DMs on Facebook and I really don’t know how to make him stop. He’s a sweet guy, and I see him a lot at conventions (he’s a photographer, I’m a cosplayer) so I can’t exactly block/cut all ties with him because then I’ve set myself up to be approached by him in person. But I’ve said as blatantly as I can that I am not interested but he’s still sending me messages like “Good morning beautiful” and sending me inappropriate memes. I know he’s just lonely, but that’s a scapegoat people use to excuse their behavior. The soft no didn’t work. A hard no potentially puts me at risk at my next convention and the worst part, he’s goaded me into feeling sorry for him if I were to give a hard no.

And men call us manipulative.

[fieldbears]

He’s not a sweet guy.

He’s intentionally ignoring your signals because he’s looking for a way to bully himself closer to you. He’s a photographer who knows you’re a cosplayer and he knows how awkward it would be for you to cut those ties. You said yourself he’s goaded you into feeling sympathetic towards him. He knows what he is doing.

In your tags, you said that advice was welcome, so here I go. I strongly advise you to, next time he sends you something inappropriate, to say “Hey, I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this, but it seems like when I gently said that I wasn’t interested, you didn’t understand what I meant. I didn’t want to cause any awkwardness or hurt feelings by saying it again more clearly, but at this point I don’t know what else to do, because you’ve been sending a lot of stuff like this  even though I don’t send any back. Thanks for understanding that I’m handling this as gently as possible! Hope we can be professional and chill when we inevitably run into each other, there’s no hard feelings on my end about the miscommunication.”

And that last bit? Is a lie. You should absolutely have hard feelings about this person who intentionally and repeatedly attempted to manipulate you when he knew it wasn’t welcome. But to reduce drama, I advise not calling him out on how blatantly shitty and predatory he was. Just pretend like you think it was a misunderstanding and that now that you’ve been more clear, OBVIOUSLY he will stop.

[knightofthesevenfandoms]

That… is worded really well. It avoids him feeling like the victim, which men tend to lash out when that happens. (Obviously I’m generalizing, every gender is capable of this, but predatory men have been perfecting their skill longer in patriarchal societies).

I really appreciate the advice, that’s really helpful. Best case scenario I would like to remain cordial and somewhat friendly at conventions, so no awkwardness ensues, but that is entirely up to him and how he responds. Thank you again!!!

[fieldbears]

Thanks. I write for a living.

Final advice: give him as little follow-up chat as you can possibly manage. In all necessary future chats, avoid apologizing and avoid accusing.

Don’t apologize because you don’t have anything to apologize for, at all, and because you don’t want to give him an opening for acting like you have. Don’t accuse because even though he deserves to be accused, it gives him an opening to act like he’s been victimized by you or by circumstances, which he hasn’t.

Also, in case you feel this way: don’t blame yourself for getting into this situation, because you did not ‘get’ into this situation. He made this situation and arranged it around you until you were stuck in it. He did so carefully in a way that he could claim innocence on if called out.

He is a male cosplay photographer who is hitting on female cosplayers. You owe him nothing.

[hcandersen]

5th richest person on the entire fucking planet wants you to give him more money

he’s a little out of pocket right now after suing a bunch of people in Hawaii to force them to sell their land on the cheap so he can have his 700-acre $100,000,000 playground to himself

[hcandersen]

God, the fucking AUDACITY

It’s easy to forget how disgustingly, perversely rich this man is. He could live in the most absurd, decadent luxury, never lifting a finger, until he turned 1000 years old without spending even a tenth, a twentieth, of the money he has now. He could buy a Tesla and drive it into the ocean, every day, for the next 100 years, without spending even a twentieth of his money.

Even 1 billion dollars is so much money that the human brain has troubles fully comprehending it, so much more money than any one, ten, twenty human beings would ever need in the span of a lifetime, even assuming a lifestyle more comfortable than that enjoyed by basically any other human throughout all of history. He has over 63.

And he wants you to donate to him?? TO HIM??? He could improve the lives of untold hundreds of millions of people if he just decided to give away some of his absurd riches. He could give away 95% of his money without it impacting the quality of his life in any measurable way. And he wants people to just give him more of it?

bring back the fucking guillotine, eat the rich

[ithelpstodream]

[omghotmemes]

[fernacular]

I’m kind of tired of male characters seeming to be good and kind and helpful and benevolent and then it turns out they’re horrible irredeemable assholes. Like, it’s not subversive anymore, it’s to the point where if a male character shows up and is like “hello I am very nice and helpful and I smile a lot” I’m just waiting for the moment he turns out to be hiding his horrible dark side so you know the abrasive male character was really the good one all along (in comparison).

You know what would actually surprise me nowadays? A male character showing up being super nice and then by the end he… still is??? 

Like, turns out being outwardly kind and polite isn’t a smokescreen but something he does because he’s genuinely kind and polite. Like, shockingly, men like that can and do exist.

I don’t know, I’m just tired. I want to stop being told to distrust kindness in men, and that the rude ones are somehow better.

[actuallygodzilla]

i am not immune to the giant valentine bear aisle

[dekoi2501post]

[dangerbooze]

OH MY GOD

[zionthepansexual]

[lochnessmonsterofficial]

[mstresser-deactivated20210415]

I love this video, I haven’t seen it in so long!

[exigencelost]

If you are finding that prolonged isolation and confinement to a single living space are having a a severely detrimental effect on your mental and physical health, perhaps I can interest you in some PRISON ABOLITION

[morganoperandi]

I’m a cis-gender man which basically means that, when I was born, the doctor went “It’s a boy!” and when I was old enough to understand I agreed with him.

The thing is, I don’t know why I feel like a man.  I was teased and bullied for it a lot when I was little.  I’ve never had stereotypically American male interests.  I never cared about sports or cars or guns.  I was more interested in music and cooking and the arts.  I’ve always been emotionally in tune and sensitive, even when I did my best to suppress my emotions to survive a childhood of abuse from other children.

It’s not physical either.  I don’t feel like a man because I have a penis or a beard.  If you put my brain in a robot body or any other body, my essence would still feel male (I assume).  I literally can’t imagine what being any other gender would feel like, since I feel so acutely male.

I think that’s why the concept of being transgender always made sense to me.  I’m a man.  I don’t have any bloody clue why I feel like a man, but I don’t feel that it’s tied to my body or my interests or the way that I’ve been treated.  I feel like a man because of something beyond that.  Something ephemeral.  So, why couldn’t others feel the same?  Why couldn’t a person who’s been misidentified as a girl feel like a boy for the exact same nebulous reasons that I do?

And, since gender really doesn’t make any sense to me anyway, why couldn’t there also be people who feel as if they don’t have one?  Or who flow across genders like a ship on a map?

Are there people out there whose sense of their own gender is inseparable from their physical form?  If you put those people into robot bodies or, simply, other physically different bodies, would their gender identity also swap?  If so, why?  Are they actually more lost in their gender identity than I am and they need to hone in on the physical in order to anchor themselves?

Why do people feel like they are the gender that they are?

[sir-renaissance]

This is very soul filling to read. Thank you

[bumblebeerror]

This is the only good type of cis take on trans/gnc tbh.

[sandandglass]

[bigtrashfire]

[thedoormann]

comic cr: @webcomicname

[sweetgrassbraids-deactivated202]

the tenderness…. 

[bright-eyed]

the whole quote is very heartwarming:

“And we are not the only animal that has to teach our young. Old lobsters show their migration routes to young ones by holding claws, the way we hold hands, and walking the long miles together. A kitten without a mother to teach her may not ever learn to hunt small mammals. Such cats will let mice run all over them—though once they are shown, they never forget. A bee coming home from her first pollen run will be stroked all over by the other bees in praise and encouragement, even though she’s probably carrying only one-tenth of what she will learn to in a few weeks. Beavers held in captivity without flowing water don’t know how to make dams—that knowledge was passed down through the generations until humans interrupted their process of enculturation.”

[gaypriori]

so I heard this story on the radio yesterday:

and my immediate thought was "okay so if someone is acquitted the state is like 'we shouldn't have to cover the cost of their stay in the prison because they shouldn't have been there in the first place" which is, of course, utterly fucked up.

but no... it's worse than that.... it's because pay-to-stay incarceration in the United States is a thing... as in it's common practice for prison inmates to be charged for their stay in prison (https://truthout.org/articles/fighting-the-fees-that-force-prisoners-to-pay-for-their-incarceration/). This was news to me.

Fighting the Fees That Force Prisoners to Pay for Their Incarceration

''Pay-to-stay'' fees push the poor into debt.

this is "we're billing the guilty for their stay; the acquitted should have to pay us for their stay too"

so yeah not only does mass incarceration thrive off of prisoners' free labor it also thrives off of prisons billing inmates like some sort of fucking Holiday Inn

[whatbigotspost]

Just when I think I have a strong grasp of the atrocities of the prison industrial complex, I learn something newly horrifying

[docholligay]

Doc, what are the top five items food banks LOVE to receive? I'm doing a collection soon and want to ask for specifics.

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives. 

[kesonafyren]

But seriously, give money

And it’s way better food, too, anything you get prepackaged has A TON of sugar and/or salt in it…collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done

[pennie-dreadful]

Yoooooo heads up for those of you with kids, I know this time of year schools start holding canned food drives so keep this in mind if you’re able to give.

[kyraneko]

collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done .

hint: the point should be to help people.