Must-Read Short Story Collections Out in 2025

You’ve probably read a Curtis Sittenfeld novel already by now. This is the best-selling author behind Romantic Comedy and Eligible. Now, Sittenfeld is giving readers a delightful collection of short stories—her second one ever, following 2017’s You Think It, I’ll Say It. Sittenfeld fans will also be excited to see a character from her novel Prep returning for the short story “Lost but Not Forgotten,” set decades after the original novel.

Horror author Stephen Graham Jones never stops writing, so we’re used to getting multiple books from him in one year. But The Ones Who Got Away is actually a reprint of a short story collection that was originally released in 2010. These thirteen short stories will creep you out and keep you covered in goosebumps until Jones’ next novel comes out. Jones’ next novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, will be published just a little bit later in March. This short story, however, is hitting shelves even sooner!

Last but not least, Torrey Peters, the best-selling author of Detransition, Baby, is back this year with a novel and a collection of stories exploring gender, sexuality, and more. First up, the titular novel Stag Dance tells the story of a group of lumberjacks who bring joy to their lonely nights by putting on dances. When some of the woodsmen volunteer to play women at the dances, secret desires are revealed. This collection always includes a sci-fi story set in the future where everyone chooses their own gender, a love story between two roommates at a Quaker boarding school, and a story of a Vegas weekend gone terribly wrong when a young crossdresser is forced to choose between a glamorous life of objectification or a less glitzy life of respect and sisterhood.