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A Conversation With Best Debut Short Stories 2020 Author Ani Cooney
“Since March, how many have had to grow up fast and be valorous because of amoral, wicked, and cowardly leadership?”

You pulled your mother’s clothes inside out and wrote
You would find new owners for your mother’s clothes. They would find movement again in a large body the size of your mother’s. Wouldn’t that be nice? you thought as you pushed the box in the closet. Her clothes fitted around someone else’s jiggle.
Two weeks had already passed and you were coping. Your mother prepared you for a time like this, after all.
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On “getting creatively lost”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Mathapelo Mofokeng
Learn about Mathapelo Mofokeng’s short story “The Strong-Strong Winds,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
“The most innocent thing you can do is want to create”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Isaac Hughes Green
Learn about Isaac Hughes Green’s short story “The First Time I Said It,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
“The writing process was a bit chaotic”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Amy Haejung
Learn about Amy Haejung’s short story “Maria,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
More in this series
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Author Cristina Fríes
“I thought this exemplified two aspects of the Colombian spirit that interest and delight me: Any festive occasion can become an excuse to start a full-on party; and time is, as a manner of speaking, subjective.”
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Author Alex Terrell
“I have always been fascinated by the idea of women being monstrous and beastly because it ruptures the dominant Patriarchal ideal of the shy woman.”
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019 Author Tamiko Beyer
“The themes of social justice, the magic of water, and the power of queer love to create a different world—these are themes that I return to again and again in my writing and my life.”