Why Are All The Best Short Story Writers Women?

"I fell in love with a robber and he took me on his rounds." - Aimee Bender, "The Ring"

Look, I already wrote today’s column. It is a celebration of some of my favorite women writers, and it is going to stay a celebration of women writers. But what happened to Mahmoud Khalil this weekend is terrifying. It is an damning indictment of the University of Columbia, and about all the proof you need that this Trump admin is serious about disappearing people.

Here’s Samer Kalaf at Defector with a pretty chilling summary: “Essentially, the U.S. government boasted about kidnapping a Palestinian because he was critical of Israel. "This is the first arrest of many to come," Trump wrote in a statement on Monday. It's flatly disgusting and horrific to snatch up anyone in this fashion, and yet few figures of authority can bear to say it. In his statement, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries chose to accept the premise that Khalil merited punishment at all. Columbia's administration, an entity too craven to stand up for its own student body on any other day, hasn't done so in this case either. Interim President Katrina Armstrong released an entirely hollow statement Monday afternoon that did not mention Khalil by name. According to a report from Prem Thakker of Zeteo, Khalil had sent an email to Armstrong requesting protection the day before he was detained, requesting protection from the harassment and threats he was receiving.”

This is how the U.S. Government treats people who are against genocide.

Now back to the question: why are all the best short story writers women?

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…is not a question I’m going to answer in this blog. All of my favorite short story writers are women, but I’m not about to get into some sort of psychosocial reason why. That’s Malcolm Gladwell territory, and it leads to putting USian basketball players on your fictional Nigerian Olympic team. Malcolm Gladwell territory is stupidity territory. Today is for smart women writers.

For the sake of this exercise, I’m not including people that could conceivably be called my friends. Far too afraid of leaving someone out. Watch the Friday Links columns for people I read, either in book form or in online journals. No, this list is a random celebration of strangers whose books are on my shelves:

Aimee Bender

My favorite writer, obviously. Currently, I’m in the midst of re-reading the collection The Girl In The Flammable Skirt, and I say “in the midst” because I’m kinda stretching it out over the course of the month, reading a couple here and there and not wanting the book to end. I’ve described Aimee Bender’s prose before as “light and airy, yet densely packed with sensory detail,” or something to that effect anyway, and that’s still a quality I’m chasing in my own writing. My favorite collection remains Willful Creatures, a book I used to carry around in a jacket pocket. But you can’t go wrong reading Aimee Bender, or enjoying her delightfully old school website.

Joy Williams

When 99 Stories of God came out, it felt like my Twitter (we had Twitter back then) was on fire. Everyone was talking about this book, even people who don’t normally loudly advertise the fact that they read fiction, like Shea Serrano. In typical fashion, I was late to the party, only reading the book last year. It hasn’t left my mind since. With respect to Lydia Davis, Joy Williams’ book was the first collection of entirely flash stories that held my totally rapt attention on every page. I kinda can’t wait to re-read it, and it might still be a 2025 re-read.

Kim Fu

In recent years, I’ve come to realize that I greatly prefer novels and poetry collections to short story collections. Particularly the ones filled with, like, 20- or 30-page well-wrought urns of stories. That’s maybe a backhanded thing to say in a column about my favorite short story writers, but I bring it up because when this kind of book captures me, I mean fully captures me so that I absolutely have to read each story in one sitting, there are few things like it. Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is one of the better story collections I’ve read. It’s not horror stories, just so you know (I didn’t), but the stories do have a haunting quality, particularly “#ClimbingNation,” “Liddy, First To Fly,” and “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867.” Bonus: the book has this gorgeous bluegreen cover with plants and animals and a woman whose face is made of what looks like sky, or water.

Jamaica Kincaid

The way Jamaica Kincaid writes in At The Bottom Of The River? I’ve never read anything like it, before or since. Beyond the lyricism, there’s a willingness to experiment and an economy of language that is unmatched. In some of these stories, the narrative “camera” takes a big, sweeping, panoramic view, before zooming in closely to first-person narration. Then there’s “Girl,” my first entrypoint to Kincaid way back in college. It’s one of them single-sentence stories, but goes on for three pages, and there is so much world-building and character development packed into that one sentence that you can hardly believe it’s real. Absolutely pick up At The Bottom Of The River if you see it in some bookstore, it is completely intoxicating.

Kathy Fish

Okay, cheating a bit on this last one. I don’t actually own any of

Kathy Fish

‘s books. WHO CARES THO I READ A LOT OF KATHY AND I’LL GET MY HANDS ON WILD LIFE ONE DAY. Kathy makes the list both for her incredible writing and her infectious excitement over all things flash. Her blog,

The Art of Flash Fiction

, is a must-read. One of these days, I’m going to take one of her 90-minute generative flash workshops. In the meantime, though, I’ll just ooh and aah over stories like “Chicago” and “A Sold Contribution.”

Honorable mentions: Kelly Link, Tananarive Due, Lydia Davis, Diane Williams, Kate Bernheimer, Lucy Corin

Sorry you got an email,

Chris