Fiction
A Teacher and Her Student
Marilynne Robinson was my fourth and final workshop instructor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After receiving my MFA this May, I left Iowa believing that there’s no good way to be taught how to write, to tell a story. But there is also no denying that...
The Mare
To feel so much through something I was not part of was, of course, lonely. I began to wonder if it had been a mistake not to have children, to wonder what would’ve happened if I’d met Paul when I was younger. The third time we had sex, he said, “I...
Jailbait
She met Jack at a party her stepmom was throwing for her dad. She was sitting alone in the corner, bored, when Jack sat next to her. He was wearing a suit without a tie and nice shoes. His eyes were a deep, obvious blue, like hers, and his hair was...
A Ghost Story
Since the incident, I did not drink, due to a court order. Occasionally, however, I drank with my mother in small amounts, or alone at a place around the corner. I confessed this to Edward. I said, “Earlier tonight I had wine with my mother. Generally...
An Excerpt from Tao Lin's 'Taipei'
Paul’s father was 28 and Paul’s mother was 24 when they alone (out of a combined fifteen to twenty-five siblings) left Taiwan for America. Paul was born in Virginia six years later, in 1983, when his brother was 7. Paul was 3 when the family moved to...
HardWhite and Harry Potter
Harry Potter was fresh from the world and had a sickness to feed. The weakling fiend probably hated everything right now, but mostly he hated that his drug was gone. All Harry Potter will want is to get high and the boys are about to swarm on him...
Sort by Kind
The VICE Reader is a series in which we publish original fiction—mostly. We will also feature the occasional poem, essay, book review, diary entry, Graham Greene-style dream-diary entry, Zemblan fable, letter to the editor, letter to a fictional...
Thought and Memory
Back in 2008, when my first novel, 'A Tree Grows in Baghdad,' came out, my publisher sent me on a West Coast tour. Sometimes folks came out in droves, sometimes they didn’t. It was great to see my public, regardless. I found I liked signing books. I...
Anton Chekhov Versus Jeffrey Dahmer
For some reason I think about the cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer every time someone mentions Anton Chekhov, a forefather of the contemporary short story. I can’t help but want to draw them out, to put them together in a cage and watch their...
The Future of Japan Is 'Very Dark,' Says Ryu Murakami
Ryu Murakami is one of Japan’s most celebrated and controversial authors. 'From the Fatherland with Love,' published in 2005 and now being translated into English for the first time, envisions a Japan wrecked by complete economic collapse, abandoned by...
The Minor Outsider
He was 29 and he liked to watch people shoot drugs into their arms on YouTube while he ate the Safeway version of Cheerios. He believed this had something to do with being afraid of, but interested in, death. He’d never done heroin. He was a coward.
RockBottom Heads Toward Bottom
The early morning air stunk of pissy pussy and unwashed balls. RockBottom did his thing all night like always, dispensing drugs to the party people. The fiends were nodded out, neck-cramp proper, and the freaks spun out on E were in the bedroom...