When I teach my fiction classes, I always tell my students: Write what you know. Of course, I didn’t make this up; it’s a cliché by this point, but one that makes sense. Even if you’re a 55-year-old male who grew up in Spain and you’re writing a story about a 93-year-old woman who spent her entire life in Alaska, you’ve got to bring what you know about life, your own experiences, to the character if you want your reader to be able to connect.

Carolyn Sun knows a lot about Korean families. She’s Korean, 1st generation, and has spent a lot of time writing about her experiences growing up in what she calls a “crazy, neurotic family.”

She also knows a lot about Korean customs, like special birthdays. For instance, a 60th birthday in Korea is cause for a major celebration. Every 60 years, the Chinese Zodiac cycle repeats, so if you’re born in the year of the Tiger, when you hit 60, it’s the year of the Tiger all over again. Koreans call it the gahngee cycle.

In Carolyn’s touching and hilarious story, “70th Birthday,” a girl is asked by her father on the occasion of his 70th birthday (also a big one in the Korean tradition), to write a 10-page letter filled with all the best memories she has of her childhood. But what’s a girl to do if she can’t recall a one?

Give “70th Birthday” a read and find out. And for more great short stories, head on over to apt23.com, our partners in this feature.

70th Birthday

by Carolyn Sun

It’s a few days before my father’s 70th birthday.

I’m on the phone with my younger sister, Jenny.

“Have you written yours?” Jenny already knows what I’m talking about.

“No,” she responds, “have you?”

“No,” I say, glumly. “I’ll come up with something.”

We’re both silent. We’ve been having this same conversation for the past eight months. The fact that we’re having that same, boring conversation in the first place is my fault, too. I shouldn’t have asked my father THE QUESTION. Here I thought I was being a good daughter at the time.

You see, eight months ago, I’d been feeling pretty flush, financially. I didn’t own a pimp cup with my name in diamonds, but still, I had a steady, full-time job teaching English, and for the first time in my life, I’d actually seen money in my bank account that wasn’t a gift from my family. I’d felt proud of myself.

It then occurred to me: I could actually buy my father’s love for the first time in my life for his birthday! He was turning 70, a big deal in a Korean’s lifetime. Like the Jews, Koreans have set aside big deal birthdays that are expensive and require elaborate parties and expensive gifts.
{click here to read the rest}

Check out previous stories on No Small Tales here>>

No Small Tales continues today with a heartbreaking story by author Chellis Ying. Set on the small island of Saipan, part of a U.S. Commonwealth that shares our American flag, but does not share American labor policies, Ying’s story follows a Chinese garment worker.

Most people have never heard of Saipan, or the 60,000 people who live there, but it’s home to some of our most controversial sweat shops, a place where Chinese families pay recruiters for the chance to eventually land a U.S. Green Card. These factories, which are allowed to put a “Made in U.S.A.” label in the clothes, are expected to turn out about 15,000 garments a day, forcing workers to put the clothing together in terribly unhealthy circumstances.

Give Ying’s “Made in U.S.A” a read and find out more, as much of her protagonist’s tribulations are based on the sad facts. For more great short stories, head on over to apt23.com, our partners in this new feature.

Made in U.S.A

by Chellis Ying

Ling was told that she lives on an island in the pacific, below Japan and above Australia. A place called Saipan. Ling is an only child. She had never been a good student, and was often caught, by her teachers, daydreaming. She had one of those imaginations that took her other places and then snapped out of it the way a person wakes up from sleep. The recruiter told her parents she would find much success in America, even a white husband. He said, “It only takes one person to make a whole family rich.” Her father borrowed nine months worth of wages, $7,000, and paid the recruiter to ensure Ling’s one year contract. At $3.05 an hour, the island’s minimum wage, she will pay off her debt in three and a half years. {click here to read the rest}

Check out previous stories on No Small Tales here>>

Periodically over the last few years, Mangesh and I have talked about trying some short stories on the _floss. Today, we’re finally getting into it by kicking off a brand feature: No Small Tales.

Once a month, in conjunction with apt23.com, we’ll be bringing you a wonderful, new short story by a talented, up-and-coming author you probably haven’t heard of yet, but no doubt soon will.

There are many fine webzines and lit fiction sites online, like apt23.com, where you can find pantloads of well wrought original stories and poetry. But very few general interest magazines, or their sister sites like mental_floss, dare to publish fiction any more. Indeed, if you don’t subscribe to The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker, chances are you aren’t getting much by the way of short stories at all. No Small Tales is here to change that, starting today.

To kick the feature off, we’re proud to present Ravi Mangla’s “Kissing Babies.” (Mangla’s bio found at the end of the story.) Set in a slightly surreal version of the early 20th century, “Kissing Babies” is about a politician named Charles Katz running for office against the likes of Al Smith, John Nance Garner, George White, and quite possibly FDR.

But where does fact end and fiction begin? When Katz passes Missouri Senator James Reed in the polls, William Hearst hires three private eyes to scrape up some dirt to attack Katz with. Did the media mogul actually do stuff like that in real life? How well do you know the US presidential election of 1932? How much of Mangla’s short is based on fact, and how much is invented?

Give “Kissing Babies” a read and find out. And for more great short stories, head on over to apt23.com. Meantime, if you like our new feature, drop a comment below and let us know.

Kissing Babies

by Ravi Mangla

The name Kittens couldn’t be taken seriously. It had a Pavlovian tendency to dredge up memories from childhood, of the kitten that got caught up in the tree and had to be carried down by the volunteer fireman or the kitten that pawed the spokes of the Concord stagecoaches that brattled down main street. At twenty-one, he lopped off the surname that had plagued so many generations of his family and let himself be known as Charles Katz, a name, in his opinion, more befitting of a public official. {click here to read the rest}