The gripping, thought-provoking stories in Yxta Maya Murray’s latest collection find their inspiration in the headlines. Here, ordinary people negotiate tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. A nurse volunteers to serve in catastrophe-stricken Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and discovers that her skill and compassion are useless in the face of stubborn governmental inertia. An Environmental Protection Agency employee, whose agricultural-worker parents died after long exposure to a deadly pesticide, finds herself forced to find justifications for reversing regulations that had earlier banned the chemical. A Department of Education employee in a dystopic future America visits a highly praised charter school and discovers the horrific consequences of academic failure. A transgender trainer of beauty pageant contestants takes on a beautiful Latina for the Miss USA pageant and brings her to perfection and the brink of victory, only to discover that she has a fatal secret.
The characters in The World Doesn't Work That Way, but it Could grapple with the consequences of frightening attitudes and policies pervasive in the United States today. The stories explore not only our distressing human capacity for moral numbness in the face of evil, but also reveal our surprising stores of compassion and forgiveness. These brilliantly conceived and beautifully written stories are troubling yet irresistible mirrors of our time.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
SKYLIT: Courtney DeNelle, ”IT’S NOT NOTHING”
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Mimi Zhu, ”BE NOT AFRAID OF LOVE” w/ Jonny Sun
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Nona Willis Aronowitz, ”BAD SEX”
SKYLIT: Sophia Benoit, ”WELL, THIS IS EXHAUSTING”
SKYLIT: Brenda Lozano, ”WITCHES”
SKYLIT: Bud Smith, ”TEENAGER”
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Ben Marra, David Birke, & Nicholas McCarthy, ”DISCIPLES”
SKYLIT: Megan Giddings, ”THE WOMEN COULD FLY”
SKYLIT: Kaitlyn Tiffany, ”EVERYTHING I NEED I GET FROM YOU”
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Taymour Soomro, ”OTHER NAMES FOR LOVE” w/ Jonathan Parks-Ramage
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Benjamin Rosenbaum, ”THE UNRAVELING” w/ Ted Chiang
SKYLIT: XC Atkins, ”DESPERADO DAYS” w/ Chris L. Terry
SKYLIT: Eloise Moran, ”THE LADY DI BOOK” w/ Catherine Collier
SKYLIT: Iman Hariri-Kia, ”A HUNDRED OTHER GIRLS” w/ Gabrielle Korn
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Alison B. Hart, ”THE WORK WIFE” w/ Julia Phillips
SKYLIT: Madhushree Ghosh, ”KHABAAR” w/ Guy Branum
SKYLIT: Elizabeth Kilcoyne, ”WAKE THE BONES”
CROWDCAST: Jamila Rowser & Robyn Smith, ”WASH DAY DIARIES”
Lit Angeles, Ep. 4: ”THE WHITE BOY SHUFFLE” w/ Steph Cha
LIVE ON CROWDCAST: Ashley Hutson, ”ONE’S COMPANY” w/ Sara Levine
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