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ByA girl named Pen and her brother, Thomas, spend the summer in Pennsylvania with their father and his new girlfriend and discover that power and control—perhaps more so than love—are central to the adult world that awaits them.
ONE STORY publishes one great short story at a time. We bring people together through reading, writing, and learning about short fiction.
A girl named Pen and her brother, Thomas, spend the summer in Pennsylvania with their father and his new girlfriend and discover that power and control—perhaps more so than love—are central to the adult world that awaits them.
In Emma Cairns Watson’s off-kilter tale “The Dissection Question,” 13-year-old Nadine tries to impress her friend Selby by signing up for an adult dating service—and gets both much more and much less than she ever expected.
Poets House
New York, NY
July 29-August 2
Get a subscription to One Story and you’ll get one great short story in the mail each and every month.
Join our story-of-the-month club
The Literary Debutante Ball returns to Brooklyn. We hope you’ll support us at our largest fundraiser.
Read and analyze Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston over the course of three weeks..
Meets Weekly
April 1 – 15
In this six-week online workshop designed for writers without significant workshop experience, each participant will workshop a short story or novel excerpt.
Meets Weekly
April 16-May 26
Michael Kardos leads the next installment of our Lecture Series with a talk on endings. Register for access to this talk, plus lectures from Fatima Kola, Anya Johanna DeNiro, Jackie Thomas-Kennedy, Gina Chung, and Alice McDermott.
Live on April 20
In this four week-course students will consider how to write complex characters—even if their experiences differ from those of the writer.
Meets Weekly
April 29 – May 20
Through reading short stories by classic science fiction writers alongside newer texts, readers will join in a discussion and analysis of the ways that speculative fiction has allowed writers to explore and challenge our gendered realities and unrealities.
Meets Weekly
May 15 – June 6
A second-generation Chinese American teen attempts to reconcile her new, emerging self with the deep roots of her culture and ancestry in Luna Hou’s Teen Writing Contest-winning story, “Railroads.”
These stories were selected from among nearly 600 contest entries from writers ages 13-19. Congratulations to our winners and runners up.
Members of our Patron Circle support One Story with annual donations. They receive subscriptions, class discounts, and more.
Ready to revise? Learn techniques and exercises to help bring your work to the next level.
Self-Guided
Each year at our annual fundraiser, the Literary Debutante Ball, we honor our authors who have published their debut books in the past year. Our 2024 debutantes are ’Pemi Aguda, Puloma Ghosh, Uche Okonkwo, and, Shannon Sanders.
One Story makes a great gift for birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or even Easter. They’ll get a story a month. You’ll get year round gratitude.
Take this class on your own time to learn all about submitting to literary magazines, residencies, and agents.
Self-Guided
One Story began in 2001 when Hannah Tinti and Maribeth Batcha saw short stories disappearing from high-profile print publications and smaller literary magazines folding.
One Story never publishes an author twice. We’ve published more than 300 stories in over 20 years.
We will reopen in spring 2024.
One Story provides a submission management system to other publishers at no cost.