David Means (born October 17, 1961)[1] is an American short story writer and novelist based in Nyack, New York.

[2] Contemporary Authors writes: "With Means's second collection, Assorted Fire Events: Stories, he was compared favorably to such esteemed writers as Raymond Carver and Alice Munro and praised by critics for his sharp prose.

"[5] James Wood, in The London Review of Books notes that "Means' language offers an exquisitely precise and sensuous register of an often crazy American reality.

You can hear the influence of Flannery O'Connor in Means' prose: in the scintillating shiver of the beautiful imagery, in the lack of sentimentality, in the interest in grotesque violence, and gothic tricksterism."

Eileen Battersby in The Irish Times has compared Means' work to that of Eudora Welty and John Cheever.