Desire. Longing. Tenderness. Passion. In this year’s volume, love lies at the heart of the stories that guest editor Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “so good that they may be bad for you”: a sixteen-year-old moves into town and effortlessly falls in love with a classmate who he knows he must abandon; a grandmother stitches together the hurts of her past when she connects with her granddaughter in the present; a young lesbian attempts to launch her sexuality with comically mixed results. In these stories and many more in this year’s volume, it’s easy to get lost in the yearning of characters who feel so heartbreakingly true and whose lives resonate with the weight of inevitability.

THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2026 INCLUDES: AIMEE BENDER • NATHAN ENGLANDER • LOUISE ERDRICH • CALVIN GIMPELEVICH • SIGRID NUNEZ • GEORGE SAUNDERS • AKHIL SHARMA • VU TRAN • PAUL YOON • AND OTHERS