Quinn and a friend are driving from New York City to Pennsylvania when she sees 9-year-old Lulu sitting on a trucker’s lap, smoking a cigarette. At the truck stop for her friend to score drugs, Quinn takes an astounding picture and then leaves, disappointing Lulu, who thinks maybe people will see the picture and help her. Quinn goes on to live the heady life of a successful photographer while Lulu is confronted with various kinds of abuse and dysfunction. Despite the differences in their lives, both women experience moments of great joy, and significant amounts of despair This is a novel about haves and have-nots, those who find love and those who don’t, how the AIDS epidemic fractured New York’s gay community, and the confusing world of art.

"We can't all be heroes. Some try and succeed. Others posture and pretend. And a few--just a few--set off on their hero's quest only to discover that failure was within them all along."

It’s the late 1990’s and Alice Stein is a grad student in New York City. As she struggles to study, write, teach, take care of the little girl from downstairs, and figure out her grandmother’s secrets, Alice Stein uncovers layers of secrets about herself, her family, and everyone around her.

Julie Zuckerman’s moving and engrossing debut novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah, tells the story of awkward but endearing Jeremiah Gerstler—the son of immigrants, brilliant political science professor, husband, and father.

The Genuine Stories is a linked collection centered around Genevieve “Genuine” Eriksson, a woman with an uncanny ability to heal people. Her gift begins to unfold at the age of eight despite the lingering disbelief of her parents.

Sunil Chandaria is struggling to write his PhD dissertation in philosophy at Harvard University. He feels his father’s disapproval because he didn’t become a doctor, and his mother’s disapproval that he doesn’t have a job or a wife. The Limits of the World is a rich novel about how we navigate the bonds of family, culture and religion in a world made smaller by immigration and technology.

Caitlin Hamilton Summie’s award-winning collection of short stories is peopled with characters who leave home, return home, or dream of home. The stories alternate between sweet, thoughtful, and sad, all expressing a universal longing for family, friendship and connection.

Minneapolis environmental attorneys Nick Ward and Lena Grant are no longer partners in law or marriage, but their lives are still strongly intertwined. Nick and his puppet can charm his psychiatrist, his attendant at the psychiatric facility, his supervisors at his mandatory community service, and his former students, but he just keeps breaking Lena’s heart.

An optimistic young Mexican woman gets pregnant while trying to cross the border into the states. An Indian-American woman struggles with infertility. When undocumented Solimar is detained by the state, Kavya and her husband foster and then fall in love with her little boy.

An intelligent, middle-aged feminist and pitch-perfect musician cannot recuperate from a brief affair with a narcissistic and possibly psychopathic married but famous music critic. By returning to the scene of the affair and listening to the world around her, Eve begins to recover memories of her past, which help her understand, and therefore move on from, her obsession.

Personal and insightful stories about our connections to each other and the world, our attempts to weave the past and present into a meaningful future, and our varying ways of seeking redemption. Unforgettable characters encounter gorgeous landscapes, nasty betrayals, shocking technology, a heartless future, and a decaying city neighborhood.

Trevor McFarquhar is haphazardly running a struggling bicycle shop, with few friends, little ambition, and an inability to form a lasting relationship. Then, during the chaos of the 1995 Transit Strike in Paris, Trevor does something horrible. Five years later, he gets a chance to redeem himself.

Ben Novotny was born with a rare chromosomal abnormality that caused profound mental retardation and seizures. He is severely limited but forms a tight bond with his older brother Hugo, who invents fun distractions and games that become dangerous as Ben gets older and bigger. Degrees of Difficulty follows the family over several decades as they each come to an understanding of how Ben affected their lives.

Sometimes wry, sometimes charming, occasionally a story will make you gasp, especially the one-pagers. In 78 pieces of fiction, flash fiction and micro-fiction, Alford’s writing is soothing, sparkling, opaque or mysterious, but it always packs a punch.

Mim’s journey to find her old friend forces her to confront her choices, herself, and her understanding of America’s ability to change the world.