Thanks to the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog, I found out yesterday that May is National Short Story month!

Huzzah! Each Wednesday throughout the month of May, I’ll be featuring at least one new short story from an emerging author and one from an established author. Additionally, I am making a commitment to write one short story a week for this entire month. I’ll tell you about the first one next Wednesday.

For my first celebrated short story by an emerging author, I’d like to direct your attention to “Husband-Shaped” by Adrienne Crezo. It’s currently published in The Pedestal Magazine, and you can read it there for free.

I *LOVE* this story. From the very first line I was drawn in, and the poignancy of the piece deeply touched my heart. Crezo has a strong voice and the enviable talent to capture a slice of humanity with beauty and style.

Please come back and leave your thoughts on the story in the comments.

Adrienne Crezo is a freelance writer living in Oklahoma. She is the Managing Editor of the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog, a regular contributor to Mental Floss and Geeks Are Sexy, a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle and member-at-large of the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. Online, Adrienne can be found on her site (AdrienneCrezo.com), but in real life she usually hangs out near the coffeepot.

Connect with Adrienne on her blog * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads

Next, my favorite short story of all time: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I teach this every semester in my Analyzing Short Fiction class at Austin Community College. It is deliciously dystopian and scrumptiously sardonic, in a way only Vonnegut can be.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Writer, novelist. Born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Died on April 11, 2007, in New York, New York. Kurt Vonnegut is considered one of the most influential American novelists of the twentieth century. He blended literature with science fiction and humor, the absurd with pointed social commentary. Vonnegut created his own unique world in each of his novels and filled them with unusual characters, such as the alien race known as the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). (from Biography.com)

Be sure to read the free short stories by O. M. Grey and Ethan Rose. (Scroll down to the bottom of that page)

More blogs celebrating Short Story Month 2011:

• Matt Bell
• Emerging Writers Network
• Sarcastic Female Literary Circle
• The Shakespearean Rag

If you’d like to participate in celebrating short fiction on Twitter, please use the hashtag #ssm2011.

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What are your thoughts on “Husband-Shaped”?

What are your thoughts on O. M. Grey’s work? Which was your favorite?

Thoughts on Ethan Rose’s Flash Fiction? Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”?

What do you like best about short fiction?

Let’s talk!