Lucy Corin's "eye popping, enlightening read" ( Publishers Weekly), now in paperback.At the heart of Lucy Corin's dazzling collection are one hundred apocalypses: visions of loss and destruction, vexation and crisis, revelation and revolution, sometimes only a few lines long. In these haunting and wickedly funny stories, an apocalypse might come in the form of the end of a relationship or the end of the world, but they all expose the tricky landscape of our...

A stunningly ambitious, prescient novel about madness, generational trauma, and cultural breakdownAt the outset of the 2008 financial crisis, Em has a dependable, dull marketing job generating reports of vague utility while she anxiously waits to hear news of her sister, Ad, who has gone missing—again. Em’s days pass drifting back and forth between her respectably cute starter house (bought with a “responsible, salary-backed, fixed-rate mortgage”) and her dreary of...

In Everyday Psychokillers spectacular violence is the idiom of everyday life, a lurid extravaganza in which all those around the narrator seem vicarious participants. And at its center are the interchangeable young girls, thrilling to know themselves the object of so much desire and terror.

The Summer 2017 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year’s three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles; the Winter issue is staff-edited.Distinguished writer Stewart O’Nan guest-edits this issue. As O’Nan writes in his introduction, “I want to feel moral confusion, because nothing in this world is simple. As a writer reading, I also admire the ...

At the outset of the 2008 financial crisis, Em has a dull marketing job generating reports of vague utility while she anxiously awaits news of her sister, Ad, who has gone missing—again. Confronted by unfathomable loss and recovery, Em beginsto see how madness permeates everything around her.Em’s story is layered with other perspectives and voices. There is Frank, the failing manager at her office; Jack, the man Frank has loved for decades; Em and Ad’s eccentric parents who ...

“Intelligent but accessible, and often poignant . . . [by] the biggest talents on the essay and blog beat.” —Publishers Weekly (on Vol. 2)Anyone still asking, “What is creative nonfiction?” will find the answer in this collection of artfully crafted, true stories. Selected by Lee Gutkind, the “godfather behind creative nonfiction,” and the staff of Creative Nonfiction, these stories—ranging from immersion journalism to intensely personal essays—illustrate the genr...

In this extraordinary novel, Laurie Weeks captures the exuberance and mortification of a lesbian junkie as she navigates the chaos and horror of everyday life. Through longing monologues to Vivian Leigh, ranting letters to Sylvia Plath and to-do lists that never get done, Zipper Mouth gives us an unforgettable protagonist caught in a spiral of addiction, unrequited love, and mental health crises, and the effortlessly hilarious and strange inner workings of her mind. A messy and raw depicti...

A thief steals the air from a room. Children invent a nursery rhyme to make sense of their fate, and a band of girls rots from the outside in. These characters stumble through joy and murder and confusion, only to survive and wait for the next catastrophe to arrive. Moments so brief and disturbing you can't afford to look away. Jac Jamc's affecting stories mine the territory between what is real and what it means to create understanding.

An extraordinary collection of short stories from an author who is set to become one of America’s leading literary voices.In the tradition of Raymond Carver or Tobias Wolff, these are all-encompassing stories of the American psyche, of love and loss and of the landscape and its people.A goldfish circles in its bowl, refusing to die, becoming the silent focus of a difficult family life; a pianist loses his talents as he is forced to question the meaning of love and commitmen...

A Buzzfeed Best Fiction Book of 2017 • An Entropy magazine Best Book of 2017“Jess Arndt’s Large Animals is wildly original, even as it joins in with the classics of loaded, outlaw literature. Acerbic, ecstatic, hilarious, psychedelic, and affecting in turn, this is an electric debut.” —Maggie Nelson, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of The ArgonautsJess Arndt's striking debut collection c...

This story is Episode One of a Miniseries Novel. Each story leads into the next one, but is complete by itself.Johnny wants to be a hero, but it isn't all its cracked up to be for him. He runs into a burning building to save a child in danger and finds out he was carrying a ghost. Later on he rescues a teen from a truck accident only to find out she's invisible. What's going on?To make matters worse his favorite cartoon character, a beautiful blonde, is speaking to him from...

“As hot and wild and dangerous as our beloved (or is it bedeviled?) state, itself.”– Lauren Groff, author of Fates & Furies“As weird and funny and beautiful and unnerving as you might expect from some of our state’s best writers.”– Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!Florida is more than just fodder for hard-boiled crime novels and zany farces. This anthology of new stories and essays challenges a star-studded line up of current and former F...