This collection of seven short stories details the emotional triumphs and complications of characters whose lives are altered by issues of sexuality and disconnection. An adolescent girl feels her father slipping away from her and, in turn, willfully destroys the imaginary world of the boy she babysits; a speech therapist struggles to make headway with a young patient while finding himself unable to communicate with his ex-lover; a gay poet cheats on his boyfriend in a desperate attempt to fuel his failing art. The dramatis personae of Two Blades Come Together is comprised of individuals who struggle towards grace and happiness but are thwarted by their inability to fit neatly into the lives of those they love. Several of the stories approach these issues through the framework of contemporary myth, exploring how fairy tales and the supernatural act upon the characters' relationships and the way they perceive their situations. The heroines of "Proof of Snow" and "The Pill Woman" are both affected by the unseen; one suffers under the strange influence of her brother even after his death, while the other must make a decision to uphold her fairy-tale world or dismantle it. In these stories, the tangibility of the supernatural is elusive and unproven, but the altered perceptions of the protagonists and their actions because of it are extremely real, with extremely real consequences. The collection also explores and tests the boundaries between poetry and fiction, pushing always towards language that is aesthetic and musical while not sacrificing the momentum and architecture of prose. Two Blades Come Together incorporates linguistic ideas from poets as varied as contemporary surrealists Laura Kasischke and Mary Ruefle to the grounded wryness of Tony Hoagland and Lynda Hull, weaving poetic language with narrative, hybridizing the qualities of fiction and poetry in an attempt to create a unique, musical vision of short fiction that is both functional and artful.

Broken Open is a collection of short stories, four of which deal with culpability and the unexpected transformations that occur when blame, either unintended or deliberately invoked, is exposed and finally understood. The remaining two stories concern relationships that turn out to be gifts, as well as painful learning experiences. In "Other Living Creatures," one family contends with post traumatic stress disorder as another implodes following the death of a young soldier in Vietnam. "Hunters" deals with the unconscious motivations that leave a father resentful and unable to forge a relationship with his son. In "Bardenbrook," an accidental death is the impetus for blame and, finally, forgiveness. Rage acts as a catalyst in "The Summoning," the story of a lesbian couple's struggle to accept the reality of breast cancer shortly before one of the partners undertakes a transformative journey as her death approaches. The two remaining stories in Broken Open deal with the protagonists finding their voices. In "Sunday Wars," a girl begins to think for herself, and in "Beyond the Parking Lot," a woman comes to terms with the restraints, self-imposed and otherwise, that have held her captive for most of her life. Each character in Broken Open struggles, perseveres, grows and, ultimately, flourishes. Despite sorrow, pain, and unexpected loss, being broken open leads them, as it does us all, if we let it, to the richest places within.

In this collection of short stories, the characters struggle to recover equilibrium in their lives that have been turned upside down. They struggle against one another, against change, and against the loss of loved ones. No matter what bonds hold the characters together, the underlying tension of change and reaction permeates their relationships and threatens what they know to be true. A theme of discontent runs in these stories. Something beneath the surface is not right, and the characters struggle to climb out of the mess their lives have become. Some of them have been stifled, like the narrator in "Resounding Gong, Clanging Cymbal," who's being pressured on all sides to marry. Some of them are toeing the line of fitting in and being independent, like the teenagers in "Hibiscus Boulevard," who, caught up in the last days of summer, are more concerned with being adults than being kids. In the title story, the teenagers in a small town find a way to memorialize one of their own by performing the act that caused him to die. The cautious bonds between the characters are continuously being worked by one another, by oppressive scenery and location, by the aftereffects of dysfunction, or by unrequited love. No matter what the context or situation, something is always just a little bit off, or wrong, in each story in this collection, and the characters must do their best to correct the situations.

We Will Make Your Head Explode is a collection of short fiction stories that explore themes of friendship, family, love, lust, jealousy, loyalty, and disappointment. The characters in these stories are utterly human; they are pushed, pulled, and often fall victim to circumstance. A woman grapples between her love of roadside attractions and her boyfriend's grief. A son is forced to decide whether or not to honor his mother's final wishes. A college student is blind to her brother's evolution beyond their family. A woman discovers new possibilities while stalking graveyards to escape the memory of a man who left her behind. A teenager on the run finds' and loses' her first love. As desperately as they struggle to control their situations, their love lives, their families, and their emotions, they are often faced with simply having to come to terms with their realities. These eleven stories are intended to examine the ways people are capable of treating each other, both good and bad, and how people deal with the inevitably of being forced to move beyond what seems permanent, to create new identities, to laugh, and to learn from their mistakes.

We'd Love to Have You on Our Show is a collection of short fiction preceded by a critical introduction. The stories share a thematic bond in that that all of the protagonists are either obsessed with or could be guests on talk shows. The introduction, "The Meaning of Yearning" explores how Robert Olen Butler and Denis Johnson have influenced me as a young writer attempting to write interconnected, character-driven stories. The introduction begins by chronologically showing how I wrote and then how I changed from workshops to writing this thesis, and it concludes by examining character, theme, and humor throughout Butler's, Johnson's, and my own stories.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.