In the Between: 21st Century Short Stories

In the Between collects seventeen prose short stories and two graphic stories written by a diversity of established and new American authors, all published since 2000. The stories feature protagonists entering adulthood who are navigating shifting cultural and personal identities as they enter college, go to work, serve in the military, emigrate to a new country, try to fall in love and/or find a sexual partner, perhaps all while struggling with being treated as "other." These stories don't shy away from difficulty or controversy. They address questions of gender, sexuality, disability, citizenship, experiences involving violence, and rural and urban topics related to the nation's post-industrial life.
To meet her parents' expectations, a daughter of immigrants, fakes her way into a top university and finds the only way out is revenge.
An aspiring accountant, a Black man who has never smoked a joint but is repeatedly mistaken for a drug dealer, decides to track down and get to know his double.
A young trans-woman considers her femininity in relation to her lesbian friend and her grandmother, who fled for her life in a rusty, leaking boat, from Vietnam to freedom in America.
In Fallujah, an American soldier suffers from PTSD after he covers for his buddy's impulsive killing of an Iraqi boy.
The authors are: Vanessa Hua, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Bryan Washington, Roxane Gay, Alice Hoffman, Benjamin Alire-S墈nz, Akhil Sharma, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Mister Loki, Rion Amilcar Scott, Maria Anderson, Phil Klay, Joy Baglio, Robert Anthony Siegel, Ryka Aoki, Bryan Hurt, Shivana Sookdeo, Casey Robb, and Nancy Fulda.