Audio By Carbonatix
Denver author Nick Arvin is already a pretty busy guy. For most of the 9-to-5 workweek, he’s a forensic engineer working in the design of power plants, oil and gas facilities, and renewable energy projects. But he’s better known as an author, first gaining local notoriety when his novel Articles of War was chosen as the One Book, One Denver program almost twenty years ago.
Since then, he’s won several prestigious awards, been seen in top-shelf outlets like The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, and published three additional novels. His most recent, Mad Boy, won the Colorado Book Award in 2019, and was one Westword included in its 2020 roundup of the best books by Coloradans. Arvin is currently working on its sequel, planned for release next year.
For most writers, that would be plenty. For most writers, half of that would be plenty. But Arvin is not most writers. In addition to all of the above, he’s taken on a new project for 2026: a short story a week, sent to subscribers’ digital mailboxes via Substack. “It’s stressing me out a little bit,” Arvin admits, but laughs as he says it.
“I spent some time in the last few months of last year putting some drafts in the can,” says Arvin. “I’m excited about it. It’s driving me to try out some things that I wouldn’t otherwise. I’ve never written horror, for example, or ghost stories, or anything like that. But I’ve found myself leaning in new directions, and that’s been fun already. And I’m just getting started.”
And a month into 2026, there are three stories available to read: “A Collection of Sticks” was the first out of the gate, followed by “Lucky Guy” and “Never Worn.” The stories themselves are already varied in style and form and to some degree tone, but all share that signature Arvin insight into character and motivation that his fans have come to know. They’re also varied in length: the opening story is nearly 2,000 words — on the short side for the short story form, but still in that window — while the second is a third of that, almost flash fiction.
The idea came from Arvin wanting to “build a readership that I’m connected with. I’ve spent a lot of time on social media,” he admits, “but it’s not my favorite place to be. So I was trying to think of a way to do it, and I knew there were writers out there who sent out newsletters — on writing, politics, their thoughts on life, whatever — but that’s not what I want to be writing. So it came out of that — what I love writing is fiction. If I’m writing, that’s what I want to write. And I love short fiction.”
The project is also a response to the reality of publishing in the short story format. “Even when you’re successful there, it’s hard to know what the readership is, what they’re thinking, how they’re engaging with it,” Arvin says. “If anyone’s really reading it, you know?”
It’s also a matter of speed of delivery. “Publishing is so slow,” says Arvin. “I sold my next novel to Europa Editions last summer, and it’s not coming out until next year. There are reasons for that, of course, but still, two years from acceptance to publication is a long while. By the time a piece takes that torturous journey and finally gets out there to readers, I’m not the same person that wrote it anymore.”
The stories, so far, are also illustrated by Arvin’s wife, photographer and artist Erin Schoepke, who runs Lunascape Photography. “I don’t know if she’ll be able to do something every week,” Arvin says, “but for as many stories as possible, she’s going to contribute an image. It’s one of the reasons I’m trying to stay a week ahead, to give her that time to work on something.”
“I really think short fiction is perfect for this moment, with short attention spans, people reading on screens,” he adds. “But it doesn’t feel like it’s out there connecting with people like it could. So this is me addressing that. By the end of the year, there will be 52 stories out there in the world that weren’t there before. Maybe they won’t all be hits, but there will be some good ones in there. And this is my attempt to meet people where they’re at, through story.”
You can receive Nick Arvin’s weekly stories via email by subscribing to his Substack. For more information on Arvin and his work, check out his author website.
