Short stories published in Coolest American Stories 2023

Listing 12 stories.

To fulfill her mother’s dying wish, a woman tries to find the right man to have sex with just once.

A man working at the Met is given an interesting—and daring—proposition regarding one of the museum’s artifacts.

As a man tosses out his old things during the pandemic, he thinks back to the lives he lived with them.

A girl who can see the auras of others struggles to make sense of those auras which she encounters as she grows up.

A fangirl stops at nothing to be with the actor she has always admired.

One day, a coach figures out how to get his high school football team into shape—and in touch with their fathers.

After her son dies, a mother reckons with the grandson he left behind.

A man reflects on his countless journeys on Greyhounds—and the woman he hoped to see at his destinations.

After a tumultuous and difficult upbringing, a woman contemplates whether or not she should give up her newborn child for adoption.