Winner of the 2017 Great American Fiction Contest, Myles McDonough received his B.A. in English from Harvard University in 2016 and is currently a candidate for an M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “Crack” is the author’s first published short story in any medium. For “Crack,” McDonough drew inspiration from the work of Latin American writer Hernando Téllez, who has a unique ability to ratchet up tension in a narrative until it becomes almost unbearable.