Coolest American Stories 2025

Mark Wish · Elizabeth Coffey

Nov 2024 · Coolest Stories Press

About this ebook

America’s most talented storytellers share their most interesting, engaging, unputdownable work in a collection made for story lovers.

The fourth volume of the annual anthology that’s been praised nationwide by readers and numerous award-winning and bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025 exudes its editors’ philosophy that a collection of widely appealing short stories can make for common ground that could unite rather than divide Americans.

Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025 features a romp of a crime story by multiple Thriller Award winning author Twist Phelan; a poignant yet surprising story about prison life by Pushcart Prize winner Mathieu Cailler; and NYC veteran author Francine Witte's hilarious rom-com about a woman who's obsessed with love and murder both.

And since interesting storytelling―rather than a bunch of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025 also includes rising star Demond J Blake's Kerouacian, laugh-out-loud tale about a search for meaning in modern-day Southern California; a tense contemporary spy story by gutsy author Philip Cesario; and a shocking portrayal of the emotional effects of American cancel culture by the Canadian writer Mehdi M. Kashani―among others in this treasure trove of unputdownable, sharply written, sometimes comic, sometimes frightening, always suspenseful stories loaded with twists and turns.

Ratings and reviews

Curating an anthology is no easy task. Striking a balance between variety and cohesion is essential—you want diverse stories, yet they must align stylistically and thematically. Coolest American Stories 2025 achieves this balance beautifully. Each story offers surprises, quirky characters, heated dialogue, and engaging plots.

I love reading short stories, and the stories in this collection are wonderful examples of contemporary storytelling; heartfelt, surprising, and often just brilliant. I am honored to be a part of this amazing collection, and grateful to be in the company of such talented and insightful writers.

Being a lover and writer of short stories, I highly recommend Coolest American Stories 2025. This anthology has won awards and features incredible stories written by award-winning authors. What more could a reader ask for?

About the author

More than 125 of Mark Wish’s short stories are published in venues such as The Best American Short Stories, TriQuarterly, The Georgia Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and he’s won a Pushcart Prize. As a book doctor he’s helped numerous once-struggling writers land agents, major book deals, and publication in venues such as The Atlantic, Tin House, and The Best American Short Stories. His novel Watch Me Go (Putnam) was praised by Salman Rushdie. His fourth novel, Necessary Deeds (Regal House) was nominated for a National Book Award and received praise from Tim Page, Laura McHugh, Daniel Torday, Tish Cohen, and Tim Johnston. 

Elizabeth Coffey is an award-winning design director at Random House, where she has designed book interiors for Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, and many other bestselling titles. She dabbled in poetry in the nineties and published in several small magazines. Her novel Eighteen Floors was a finalist for a Claymore award. Her pen name is a tribute to her beloved great-grandmother Johannah Coffey. Elizabeth has been Mark’s go-to editor for virtually all of his published short stories and novels.