Pushcart 2025 Nominations
After Dinner Conversation Announces Pushcart Prize Nominations
At After Dinner Conversation, we’re excited to announce our annual nominations for the Pushcart Prize, a celebration of some of the most thought-provoking and impactful stories we’ve had the honor of publishing this year.
What Is After Dinner Conversation?
After Dinner Conversation is a publication dedicated to short stories that spark ethical and philosophical conversations. Our mission is to publish fiction that isn't just entertaining—but intellectually engaging. Each story we feature is carefully selected for its ability to challenge perspectives, inspire dialogue, and stay with readers long after the final line. Whether it’s a speculative sci-fi tale or a contemporary moral dilemma, our stories are chosen for their power to ignite meaningful conversations… perhaps even after dinner.
About The Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is one of the most prestigious literary honors in the United States, recognizing the best poetry, short fiction, and essays published by small presses each year. Founded in 1976, the Pushcart Prize celebrates the spirit and significance of independent publishing, elevating voices that may not always be heard in mainstream literary outlets. Being nominated is a significant achievement—one that places a story among the best of the best in the world of small press literature.
Our 2025 Nominations
This year, we’ve selected six stories that exemplify the kind of bold, thoughtful storytelling we strive to publish. These pieces stand out not only for their literary quality but for the compelling ethical questions they raise and the conversations they inspire. Each of these stories invites readers to wrestle with nuanced questions of morality, society, and the human condition. We’re proud to stand behind them and honored to share them with a wider audience through our Pushcart nominations.
“On Ice” – January 2025 - Laura Mullen
Years after freezing embryos with her former partner, a woman is asked to release them so he can start a family with someone new. This intimate, contemporary story confronts love, loss, and ownership over the future, raising piercing questions about autonomy, consent, and the fragile boundaries between past and present.
“One Out of Four” – March 2025 - Joseph S. Klapach
On her eighteenth birthday, Molly elects to undergo a risky medical procedure that offers dramatic weight loss — with a one-in-four chance of death. A piercing exploration of autonomy, beauty standards, and the price of agency over one’s body.
The Survival Artist – April 2025 - Peter Mare
In a society where survival depends on collecting glitter-stones, one enigmatic figure lives without them on the edge of the sea. A haunting allegory of consumerism, desire, and the possibility of rejecting a world built on scarcity.
“Beyond the Esquiline Gate” – September 2025 - Benjamin Clabault
In ancient Rome, a clever slave struggles to buy freedom for himself and his sister. Both historical drama and timeless parable, the story probes loyalty, sacrifice, and the meaning of liberty under oppression.
“The Wife” – October 2025 - Veronica Zora Kirin
The second “Mrs. Roberts” fulfills her role with perfect devotion before being returned for another. Part fable, part horror, the story interrogates the disposability of women and the meaning of identity when love is reduced to obedience.
“Soul Mate” – December 2025 - Babette Gallard
A grieving programmer resurrects her dead best friend as an AI companion, only to release it as a product that reshapes human intimacy. Both a story of loss and a warning about technology, it asks what happens when grief, memory, and love are entrusted to machines.
Thank You To Our Authors and Readers
We are deeply grateful to our contributors, whose creativity and insight make After Dinner Conversation what it is. And to our readers—thank you for being part of a community that values literature with substance. Your support fuels our mission and keeps these important conversations going.
We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed as the Pushcart editors make their selections. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to revisit these standout stories and share them with others who appreciate fiction that challenges and enlightens.
Stay tuned—and keep the conversation going.
(Each respective issue can be purchased as a digital copy from our website, or wherever books are sold. Just search “After Dinner Conversation Magazine”)
