Long-listed for 2025 The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection honors.

A 2025 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medalist for Short Fiction

2025 IPPY Book Awards Gold Medalist

Available now at West Virginia University Press and Bookshop.

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.

Praise

“[…] a beautiful and striking collection about friendship, secrets, and unspeakable desires.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Crafty and peculiar, this literary debut explores the intricacies of innocence, lust, and
motherhood.”
—Booklist

“The stories in Softie offer a bold and mesmerizing exploration of visceral grief and desire, of violence and survival, and of the body’s capacity for both decay and shimmering afterglow. Expertly blending the strangeness and terror of magic with the strangeness and terror of being alive, this collection introduces Megan Howell as an unforgettable new voice.”
—Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

“Howell’s collection definitely has a firm place in ‘sad girl’ literary fiction and carves a needed space for female characters of color that move beyond the stereotypical white, beautiful, rich characters who dominate the subgenre.” 
—Kristen Gentry, author of Mama Said

“Megan Howell’s Softie is a tender, sometimes absurd, incredibly impressive collection of stories about girlhood and womanhood and otherhood. What she does with these stories, with the wondrous, wandering, and whimsical women they center, is absolutely sublime.”
—LaToya Watkins, author of Holler, Child: Stories

“Smart. Lonely. Rare. Weird. Otherworldly. In Softie, Megan Howell has done something few can: she’s made something new. This collection had me heartbroken in the best ways. Softie is the freak anthem I’ve been waiting for.”
—Halle Hill, author of Good Women: Stories

“Cynical, envious, and resentful characters populate the resonant short stories of Softie, in which those who face the darkest parts of themselves can reach catharsis.”
—Foreword Reviews

“Howell reminds us that humans are profoundly unpredictable, despite their tendency toward self-sabotage. She leaves us unsettled, yet delighted.”
—Washington City Paper

“Megan Howell has an unrelenting voice and constructs taut narratives that wind both reader and characters into a spiral of worry. Her debut collection is sure to both dazzle and haunt.”
—Electric Lit, “Best Short Story Collections of 2024”

“Wonderfully speculative and weird, Megan Howell’s debut collection of short stories explores meaning, embodiment, secrets and relationships. Howell’s is an exciting new voice for the sad girl in all of us.”
—Ms. Magazine

“With her stories Howell reminds readers that the grief of thwarted development can only be lived through; to rush it just deepens the wound.”
—Necessary Fiction

“This striking collection takes readers on an intimate journey through feminine emptiness – resonating with a universal loneliness many will recognize.”
—Southern Review of Books