Softie: Stories [Paperback]

2025 PEN America Finalist, Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

2025 National Book Award Honoree, "5 Under 35" 

2025 Gold Medal, Independent Publishing Book Awards (IPPY): Short Fiction

In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in Softie transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places. 

A former child star haunted by a past she can't remember. An Afro-French girl with an obsession for ear lobes. A loner whose only friend is hiding a terrible, otherworldly secret. Each of these stories shares situations that are sometimes fantastical, sometimes commonplace, but always strange. From a Corsican vacation town in its off-season to hospital rooms and a seedy hotel suite in Chicago, experience the every day come fully untethered from reality.

2025 PEN America Finalist, Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection

2025 National Book Award Honoree, "5 Under 35" 

2025 Gold Medal, Independent Publishing Book Awards (IPPY): Short Fiction

In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls inSoftietransform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places. Megan Howell is a DC-based writer. She earned her MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland in College Park, winning both the Jack Salamanca Thesis Award and the Kwiatek Fellowship. Her work has appeared inMcSweeney’s,The Nashville ReviewandThe Establishmentamong other publications.In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in Softie transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places. 

A former child star haunted by a past she can't remember. An Afro-French girl with an obsession l“'