Rated "Most Popular Fiction Magazine 2024" by Chill Subs

Named Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023, 2024" by Chill Subs

Rated "Top 50 Fiction" by Substack

Delight in intriguing, thought-provoking conversations about ethics, philosophy, and social issues! After Dinner Conversation is a monthly literary magazine publishing short fiction. Each issue features both established writers and up-and-coming authors who contribute fascinating philosophical insights on controversial topics like marriage equality, assisted suicide, the meaning of death, animal rights and defining your "purpose." It's time to go deep in search of truth! If you love reading imaginative short stories on hot topics that make your brain think deeply but also have you laughing out loud... then this magazine is for you!

"After Dinner Conversation" Magazine - October 2026

• The Bird Likes Kafka: A drifter takes a teaching job at a Depression-era reform school and is slowly corrupted.
• The Bucknor Driver: A driving-test manager is begged by a mother to secretly fail her alcoholic son.
• Mr. Beardsley: A workaholic engineer is inexplicably reborn as a stray cat.
• A Statistical Anomaly: A quiet analyst becomes an office flashpoint after he refuses to declare his identity on his firm's diversity dashboard.
• Self Defense: A man decorated as a hero for a self-defense killing hides that he enjoyed it and is courting a repeat opportunity.
• The Other Inbox: A young woman gets a surprise email apology from the college professor she pursued as a student.
• Cruel Means, Bitter Ends: A war-haunted veteran becomes prime minister vowing to end a thousand-year war....by losing it.

After Dinner Conversation is an award-winning independent nonprofit publisher. We believe in fostering meaningful discussions among friends, family, and students to enhance humanity through truth-seeking, reflection, and respectful debate. To achieve this, we publish philosophical and ethical short story fiction accompanied by discussion questions.

★★★ If you enjoy this story, subscribe via our website to "After Dinner Conversation Magazine" and get this, and other, similar ethical and philosophical short stories delivered straight to your inbox every month. (Just search "After Dinner Conversation Magazine")★★★