Showing results by narrator "Johnny Rey Diaz" in All Categories

The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.

“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home.

“What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more deeply about our place in the world around us.

In the 1950s, tensions remain high in the border town of La Frontera. Penny loafers and sneakers clash with boots and huaraches. Bowling shirts and leather jackets compete with guayaberas. Convertibles fend with motorcycles. Yet amidst the discord, young love blooms at first sight between Fulgencio Ramirez, the son of impoverished immigrants, and Carolina Mendelssohn, the local pharmacist’s daughter. But as they’ll soon find out, their bonds will be undone by a force more powerful than they could have known.

In modern-day Mexico, Sitlali has no family left and has caught the attention of a gang leader. She has no choice but to make the perilous trip to the US border and track down her long-absent father. The night before her journey, she finds a conch shell detailed with ancient markings. In 1521, Calizto is an Aztec young warrior in Tenochtitlan, fighting to save his city from Spanish imperialists. With his family dead and the horrors of war surrounding him, Calizto asks a sacred moon conch for guidance. Connected by the magical conch, Sitlali and Calizto can communicate across centuries.

Blanca Montes wants to make a difference in the world, to do more than her wealthy godfather and spoiled boyfriend think her capable of. So when Greg Chan shows up as a new student at her Nevada school, she is more than intrigued by this handsome, brilliant stranger. But Greg and Blanca are drawn to each other by something stronger--their fates entwined centuries ago. In his first life, Greg was Captain Popoca, and Blanca is the reincarnation of Princess Iztac, who took her own life after believing her beloved Popoca was sent to his death in battle.

Mexico. 1418. Meet Prince Acolmiztli. Puma of the Acolhua People. Heir to his father’s throne. Half Acolhuan, half Mexica. Singer. Warrior. Poet. Sixteen years old. And now, betrayed. A palace plot, placed by the deadly Tepaneca Empire, kills his mother and siblings, puts his father’s army into retreat, and sends Prince Acolmiztli into a treacherous exile. Battling hunger, snow-swept mountains, and the machinations of the city-states all around him, Prince Acolmiztli vows revenge.