An aging AI researcher, alone with her robot companion, must make a difficult decision when the android begins to malfunction. Short Story

Stuck in an apartment with his ex-boyfriend, a man meets with the government agent who will decide whether the couple has really broken up. Short Story

In the aftermath of a flu pandemic that kills most of the population, a survivor, barricaded in Alaska, remembers her life while contemplating a grisly choice. Short Story

“He’s just a kid. Why are you putting a kid in handcuffs? This feels like profiling. Isn’t that what this is called?”

Winner of the Fall 2019 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest.

In a pre-Giuliani New York where pornographic theaters create communities of dissimilar people, a young blue-collar worker and a homeless ex-con forge a connection through their shared enjoyment of public sex. Short Story

“He says that he needs to talk to you about something. You feel your stomach churn. He says that he is sorry.” Their relationship in flux, two men go on vacation in Palm Springs to try to patch things up.

“What’s worse than any pain is being without him, and what’s worse even still is that it’s his idea to go.”

The funeral of a family friend brings a musical legend from a bygone Iran back to town.

Sunil and Amy are just trying to find a Cambridge apartment they can afford when a call from Nairobi changes everything.

“She looks at her brilliant, talented mother and wants to cry.” A young Moroccan doctor makes an agonizing choice following a visit from her mother.

On the day the Earth is supposed to end, Karen is entrusted to open the YMCA. An excerpt from New York Times bestseller Ruta’s new novel.

“Agent Probii’s first days as undercover agent were particularly disconcerting because within the city each resident spoke a different language.” 

“I wish you had those pills to help. Remember those?”

The Spring 2019 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest Winner

2019 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest Runner-Up

2019 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest Runner-Up

When the townsfolk gathered to dip that year’s births in the creek, all saw what the midwife had already observed: all the babies were the same baby.

2018 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest winner selected by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

Motherhood can be a crushing disappointment.

Once I learned of the existence of mothers, I decided to order one for myself.

Stories are dangerous. They can get you killed.

A tale of forbidden love in an age when corporations have replaced government.

Life is for living, my dead mother said.