Smithereens | John H. Leavitt

"Her name was Shannon and she belonged to a large family of children with broken bones. The bones weren’t all broken at the same time. They got broken one right after the other, like falling dominoes..."

The Noble Horse | Lisa Regen

"For the most part, horses are quiet. They neigh only to each other. In pain they are silent. If you are listening you might notice the stomp of a foot, the swish of a tail, their gentle breath..."

Day Is Done | Shannon Coghlan Reiss

"The gunny almost always kept a wad of singles in the top drawer of his filing cabinet, and I sometimes wondered if he left them there specifically for me..."

New Old Friends | Alethea Tusher

"I find the cost-benefit of social exertion in party-like or party-actual atmospheres (like this one) not worth all the hygiene that I’m mostly neutral about..."

We Need to Talk about Karen | Dorothy Cornish

"You recognise how extremely serious this is? I mean, you can see how it looks from our side, right? Good. Yeah. Sure. Michele, would you get her some tissues?..."

Not Crying | Sally K Lehman

"Inez was bigger than me, older than me. And she was heavier, not just because of age. She was one of those kids with a stomach that sticks out ahead, who walks through the world belly first..."