3500+ American Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking for great American short stories you can read for free? Whether they’re written by American authors, set in the USA, or just have that ever-elusive quality of Americana, this is the page you’re looking for.

🏆 Winning stories

“Hearts Are Trump” by Sarah Coury

🏆 Winner of Contest #246

Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t played cards together in years. If you want to get real technical about it, Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t even shared the same room in years, but that ain’t news to anyone east of Livernois. By now, the entire city of Detroit knows about Abraham and William Haddad—at least those who regularly stop into the family party store for their weekly supply of meats, spirits, and fresh-baked pita. It’s old news. Two bitter brothers broken up over a girl who left town anyway. It’s been ages and the aunties need fres...

82 likes 59 comments 59

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“Multiple Choice” by Zack Powell

🏆 Winner of Contest #198

Okay class! Pop quiz. If you've been doing the readings, this should be a piece of cake. Remember to fill out both sides of this paper. You have the whole class period to finish. Good luck.1. Christopher Columbus first traveled to the Americas using which means of transportation?A) A cargo shipB) A steam locomotiveC) A Boeing 747 airliner D) A vintage red 1985 Camaro with a crack in the middle of the windshield and no heated seats2. What is the term for the pilgrims leaving England to journey to America?A) ImmigrationB) EmigrationC) Mig...

252 likes 186 comments 186

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“The Bullet that Esther Stopped” by Delbert Griffith

🏆 Winner of Contest #196

II shot papa square in the heart but he didn’t die. That damn bible he carried with him saved his life. I was considerable lucky that papa had his axe at hand, and that he kept it sharp. I picked it up. It was a heavy thing, so I swung with all my might and put it right through his head. Seein’ his brains made me throw up. I moved away so it wouldn’t get on papa. That would be disrespectful.Papa was a big man. I couldn’t bury him like that, so I started choppin’ off his arms and legs with the axe. I was down to the right leg when Sheriff Cul...

163 likes 208 comments 208

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⭐️ Recommended stories

“Surfer Poet” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

Submitted to Contest #276

What brought us together? We couldn’t have been more different when we first met.Even being female was not really something we had in common as we were at the opposite ends of that scale, as far apart as if we belonged to different species.She danced into the windowless classroom in the maze of Adams Humanities in a swirl of colourful clothing, already conversing with several other students as easily as breathing, even to the boys, maybe especially to them actually, reflecting back on it. From snatches of conversation, I understood that...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“I'm Glad It Was Me” by Thom With An H

Submitted to Contest #276

“I wish it was me.”It never occurred to me when I told Ms. Dot that my father had passed away that she would be jealous, but in some small way, it made the news I was sharing a little less painful. I, still being a young man, viewed death as a tragedy but to people like my father and Ms. Dot, it was a relief, a welcomed end to a life longing for completion. I guess her subtle comfort shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all, Ms. Dot had been looking over my wife, daughter, and me since we moved next door to her almost seventeen years earlie...

15 likes 5 comments 5

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“Mandy Could Shoot” by Frances Gaudiano

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #255

Mandy could shoot. She could shoot better than any girl she ever met, any man too, but you didn’t go around telling men that. Men around here wouldn’t date a girl that was better than them and she did like going out on dates – getting all dolled up with her best outfit and putting on make-up. She liked when they picked her up in their newly cleaned truck and took her to dinner, or the cinema and they paid her way. Men around here were old-fashioned. That was fine with her. She’d smile, showing off the dimple in her left cheek and say, ‘Sure ...

20 likes 6 comments 6

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✍️ All stories

“That night, I caught Two!” by John Howard Hatfield

Submitted to Contest #276

The date was 9 October, 1965 and, I had just caught two! I was in need of a further plan. You realize that was just over fifty-nine years ago today.A couple of weeks earlier, I had returned home from Wyoming just in time to receive the call to meet in the parking lot across from Guion Hall with the rest of my fish buddies; twenty more guys in the exact same boat I was in—starting college and being a member of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. I still wasn’t sure this was the path right for me. I was making good money—more than...

1 like 0 comments 0

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“Surfer Poet” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

Submitted to Contest #276

What brought us together? We couldn’t have been more different when we first met.Even being female was not really something we had in common as we were at the opposite ends of that scale, as far apart as if we belonged to different species.She danced into the windowless classroom in the maze of Adams Humanities in a swirl of colourful clothing, already conversing with several other students as easily as breathing, even to the boys, maybe especially to them actually, reflecting back on it. From snatches of conversation, I understood that...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“My Father; Then My Sister” by Heidi Fedore

Submitted to Contest #276

This memoir is about the Vietnam and Iraq wars.It was 1969, and I sang and twirled and imagined my dad sitting in the green, oversized wicker chair in my grandparents’ kitchen listening to a tape recording of Judy Collins. “My father always promised us that we would live in France.” The song, “My Father,” kept my dad, who was serving in Vietnam, nearby. “I’d sail my memories of home, like boats across the Seine.” I was in the second and third grades and couldn’t find Cu Chi, Vietnam, on a map and wasn’t aware that Dad was in danger. I was aw...

4 likes 0 comments 0

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“Starbucks Apple” by John Nichols

Submitted to Contest #276

 You know how a song can relive a memory:yes, a vivid memory of me and her. I guess you could say it was our first date. We had met in church during my time farming with my aunt and uncle. It was the summer of 2006, and I had just graduated from community college—yes, I know, quite an accomplishment. My aunt and uncle come up from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to the upper peninsula of Michigan for a family reunion. Their visit was brief as usual: ten hour drive for a brief hour or two visit and a brief ten hour drive home. Yes, they took me c...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“The Choice” by Burton Sage

Submitted to Contest #276

The ChoicebyBurt Sage I want you to give me a very short oral biographical sketch of who you are,” Edith said to William. “How do you describe yourself?” Edith, a marriage counselor with three decades of experience, was meeting with William Randolph Pierce III and his wife, Susan, in her meeting room. Susan had requested the session, and William had reluctantly agreed. “My name is William Randolph Pierce, III, and I am a tenured Professor of Physics at Dartmouth University,” William began. “I am one of the youngest tenured professors at Dar...

3 likes 2 comments 2

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“The Stranger Beside Me” by Ron Conte

Submitted to Contest #276

It has been forty years since I took American Airlines flight number 3282. It was just a one-hour flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but I cannot forget the impact that short flight has had on the last half of my life. I remember it was a typical summer day in Los Angeles. The sun was peeking through some cumulus clouds. The Santa Ana wind plied its way through the trees and surrounding buildings as if a warm blanket was covering the city. I had just spent two weeks with my wife-to-be in the quaint town of Ojai. The excitement and ...

7 likes 0 comments 0

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“What If The State Is Disequilibrium? (Novel excerpt)” by Linda Frothinger

Submitted to Contest #276

“When an object sits at rest or moves along a straight line with no change in momentum, it will continue in this undisturbed state” (Isaac Newton)The road stretches ahead straight—its path outlining terrain against an arc of color along the northern sky—for logging trucks used to build the lodge. I guess, because why else does it etch a line from here to there except to accommodate. An arrow. The night shows only a blanket of cloudless light shielding a three-quarter moon. Ahead shadow marks shallow pockets left by spring rains. Their predic...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“Rescue Rainbows” by Dawn Walter

Submitted to Contest #276

Totality lasted four minutes and fifteen seconds. International peace warriors, hippies, crust-punks, road dogs, hobos, Natives, locals and hillbillies would converge in the Ouachita National Forest in southeastern Oklahoma to pray for peace during this well-advertised total solar eclipse event. The collaborators from several counter-culture communities built the Heartfire on top of a clear-cut hill for a maximum viewing experience situated far from the primitive camps along dirt logging roads. Super-Happy Funtime Camp was nearly a mile bey...

4 likes 0 comments 0

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“Thank you Henry!” by Bracy Ratcliff

Submitted to Contest #276

Any other night, Dad was at the table waiting for us, his four sons, when Mom called us in for supper. Tonight, Dad was on the phone so as we walked into the kitchen, Mom did that “shhh” thing with her finger in front of her lips. We quickly quieted down and found our seats at the table. We could hear Dad talk, but he wasn’t saying much, “Ok, sure, I understand. Ok, I’ll let them know. Ok, thanks.” He untangled the stretchy phone cord and hung the handset back in its cradle on the wall. He quickly settled i...

5 likes 0 comments 0

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“I'm Glad It Was Me” by Thom With An H

Submitted to Contest #276

“I wish it was me.”It never occurred to me when I told Ms. Dot that my father had passed away that she would be jealous, but in some small way, it made the news I was sharing a little less painful. I, still being a young man, viewed death as a tragedy but to people like my father and Ms. Dot, it was a relief, a welcomed end to a life longing for completion. I guess her subtle comfort shouldn’t have been a surprise, after all, Ms. Dot had been looking over my wife, daughter, and me since we moved next door to her almost seventeen years earlie...

15 likes 5 comments 5

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“The Camera's Favorite Vixen” by G S Martin

Submitted to Contest #276

  It was a beautiful ceremony filled with love and light. Blanche was her Christian name, Blanche White Horse. The beloved matriarch of the tribe. 112 years old. Some say she’s a dozen years older than that. Mother, Grandmother, Great, and Great Great to scores of tribal members, living and dead.                                       &...

4 likes 1 comment 1

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“Sadie, Crystalline” by A.T. Westbrook

Submitted to Contest #276

I'm running on the least sleep I've had in years. For the past week, I've found myself drifting off for an hour or two each night before anxiety pries my eyelids open to scour the ceiling for answers, reading mysteries in the shadows and cracked wood. I'm not even sure about the question. In between my girl's dream-laden breaths beside me, phantoms whisper to me, taunting. Do something, they jeer, if you can figure out what it is you need to do. And so their derision sets the tone for my sleeplessness. And as my mind races around the darkene...

4 likes 0 comments 0

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“The Question” by Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #275

How do you go about accusing a family you’ve never met of being murderers? That was a thought that tumbled through Fletcher’s head on the drive up to Weyauwega.He hadn’t trained to ask these sorts of questions to strangers. At any point, he could have turned around back to Milwaukee, but he continued ever northward. His destination, Weyauwega, was beyond where the farmlands of southern Wisconsin turn into the marshy forests of the north. The inhospitable land that Native American tribes were driven in order to free up farmland for immigrants...

16 likes 18 comments 18

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“Man On The Mountain” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #276

The first thing I noticed about Karma wasn't his maroon robes or weather-beaten face, but his laugh. It erupted from somewhere deep in his belly and echoed off the Himalayan peaks, causing a few snow-dusted ravens to take flight from a nearby prayer flag pole. I was hunched over my backpack outside a teahouse in Tengboche, Nepal, altitude 12,687 feet, trying to decide if my altitude sickness medication was making things better or worse. My path to this moment had begun six months earlier when, reeling from a messy divorce and the collapse of...

5 likes 3 comments 3

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“To Hank - Note #2” by A.J. Williams

Submitted to Contest #275

The emptiness feels endless. When I lost our son and saw his still, lifeless body, I felt a sadness deeper than anything I’d ever known. I looked into his eyes and saw only a cold emptiness. When I needed you the most, you weren’t there. You were never there. Now, this emptiness eats me up inside, and more than ever, I just want peace—to be with our son. Hank, when you tell me, “You’re not a burden,” I know you’re lying. Living with mental illness *is* a burden. Depression drags us all down, and the only way out sometimes seems like death fo...

10 likes 2 comments 2

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