I’ve always been a fan of short fiction. My debut book, The Escape to Candyland, is a collection of interrelated short stories. It was a finalist in two contests: The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and Southern Fried Karma Novel Contest. My latest book, Sometimes We Fall, is also a short story collection. It includes several contest winners. I’m working on a third collection which will be published in 2024.
Sometimes We Fall takes readers into the lives of people searching for self, sense of belonging, and their version of truth: A son protects a secret that could destroy his family's reputation and fortune. A daughter searches for the truth as her mother descends into dementia. A mother asks an unexpected friend to look after the baby she plans to abandon. Their paths are not easy and inevitably they fall. Some pick themselves up and some can’t or won’t as they struggle to find the reason for their failures.
There are so many layers to The Metamorphosis. At first glance, it is a tale of the main character’s physical transformation into a bug. The real terror is how his family turns into monsters of their own when he becomes a burden to them. After he dies, his family is relieved and moves on to happier places.
This is one of the only books I have in my library (11 in total). I have several copies of The Metamorphosis, the oldest copy from high school. I hope to buy the illustrated copy next.
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century…
Shirley Jackson is a master of the short story. My favorite is The Lottery. The build-up to the main event is spectacular. The reader thinks the village is getting ready for a normal event. As time passes, we realize what is to come. The themes of tradition and mob mentality are still relevant as we read about current events.
I paid homage to this story in my own tale which is included in my book.
I fell in love with The Yellow Wallpaper in high school. It is one of the earliest, if not only, stories we were reading about a woman’s mental health. The protagonist is depressed but is not taken seriously by her husband. He locks her away and ridicules her worries. She goes mad and becomes part of the wallpaper that first disturbed her.
What first caught my attention is that she is not allowed any mental stimulation including reading and writing. It speaks to society’s expectations of women – they should be content with being wives and mothers, and nothing more.
The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.
Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As…
If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This was a finalist for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award. I picked up this short story collection when I started my writing career. Everyone told me short stories weren’t popular. No one read them. Publishers weren’t buying them.
It took Robin Black eight years to write these ten stories. Each word is exquisite. Penguin Random House bought it. We’re all reading them.
Heralding the arrival of a stunning new voice in American fiction, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This takes readers into the minds and hearts of people navigating the unsettling transitions that life presents to us all: A father struggles to forge an independent identity as his blind daughter prepares for college. A mother comes to terms with her adult daughter’s infidelity. An artist mourns the end of a romance while painting the portrait of a dying man. Brilliant, hopeful, and fearlessly honest, If I…
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of four novellas dealing with the theme of retribution. One of the stories, "The Big Driver", is about a writer. I won’t give any spoilers but every time I am asked to attend a writing event, I ask myself if I should go.
From the master of the long story form, the Sunday Times No. 1 besteller, Full Dark, No Stars - described by the Sunday Telegraph as 'an extraordinary collection, thrillingly merciless, and a career high point' - now with a stunning new cover look.
Is it possible to fully know anyone? Even those we love the most? What tips someone over the edge to commit a crime?
In '1922', a story which was adapted into a Netflix original film, a Nebraska farmer, the turning point comes when his wife threatens to sell off the family homestead.
Dressed to kill and ready to make rent, best friends Lisa and Jamie work as “paid to party” girls at the Rose City Ripe for Disruption gala, a gathering of Portland's elite.
Their evening is derailed when Lisa stumbles across Ellen, a ruthless politician and Lisa’s estranged mother. And to make matters worse, Lisa’s boyfriend, Patrick, crashes the party to meet his new boss, Portland's food cart drug kingpin. Lisa makes a fateful choice that traps her, Jamie, and Patrick in Ellen’s web. In this gripping thriller, Lisa must reconcile a painful past and perilous present.
Suspected murder, eclectic food trucks, and artisanal cocaine: just another day in Thorn City.
It’s the night of the Rose City Ripe for Disruption gala—a gathering of Portland’s elite. Dressed to kill in sparkling minidresses, best friends Lisa and Jamie attend as “paid to party” girls. They plan an evening of fake flirtations, karaoke playlists, and of course, grazing the catering.
Past and present collide when Lisa stumbles across Ellen, a ruthless politician who also happens to be Lisa’s estranged mother. Awkward . . . When Lisa was sixteen, Ellen had her kidnapped and taken to the Lost Lake Academy—a…
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