I’m honored to have my story “Fire Starter” in Issue One of the wonderful LossLit Magazine:
And it was always the same story, her strategy never changing: get the girl she was fighting in a headlock, pull out her busted-up blue Bic gas station lighter, and set her hair ablaze. Granted, it never lasted long, someone always put it out, but no onlooker, no matter how much they hated her, would every try to intervene when they saw Katie pull the lighter out—as if daring her to do it again, to prove she still had it in her. She always did.
A hearty thanks to LossLit editors/founders Aki Schilz and Kit Caless for allowing me to a part of this. What they’re doing, trying to define (and redefine) what “loss” is in literature, is a marvel. Also love that they’re asking contributors to, as they put it, “nominate an existing, published book that they think deserves to be recognized in a new canon of literature driven by loss.” My nomination: Dybek’s Coast of Chicago. Definitely check these guys out. They rock.