Possum | Marcie Friedman

"My dog, Hooper, killed a possum in the backyard, and the next morning Ellie Longbottem had her baby. I know there doesn’t seem to be much in common..."

Bad Girl | Kate Jayroe

"Helen lives in my frontal lobe. Sometimes, though, she enjoys lobe-hopping. Full-on parietal. Occipital, every blue moon..."

Turbine | Mitchell Grabois

"This is not a job I ever expected to have, but I couldn’t keep farming, not enough land, machines too old. I retrieve dead birds from the base of wind turbines..."

The Fisherman | Christie Wilson

"All fishermen know that half full nets weigh much more than the sum of their contents; they also bear the emotional heft of the incomplete, the left undone..."

Bad Water | Katrina Carrasco

"It’s weird, right, that I chose a town on the water? That’s a form of therapy, though. I think it’s called exposure therapy..."