The first time she said those words, suggested to her by an Episcopal priest, Lindsey Crittenden was riddled with misgivings. She didn’t pray or attend church services—she wasn’t even sure she believe
When her alcoholic father leaves home abruptly, Jamie, a fourth-grade spelling whiz, blames her mother. By channeling her confusion and sorrow into a fixation with spelling and with a visit to a nearb
After a miscarriage, Catherine leaves her husband to grieve privately, believing that her grief can't be shared. A surprise encounter with a busybody neighbor, garden pests, and a laconic tree man hel
A stained-glass artist finds herself threatened when her teenaged daughter forms a close friendship. Memories of her own best teenaged friendship, and of an unsettling encounter amid ancient ruins, fo
When confronted with surprising evidence of her lover's life apart from her, a copywriter in NYC wakes up to her role in his deceit. Set against a desolate winter urban landscape - "New York City woul
Kit and Jeff move to the idyllic coastal town of Bodega Boy when he gets a postdoc fellowship at a marine lab. As a grant deadline looms at Jeff's lab, Kit begins pursuing her own professional interes
A girl betrays a longtime friend for a chance at popularity and finds she has cut off her connection to childhood forever. Set in the fog-shrouded artichoke fields of coastal California, this story wo
Robin, aged nine, is visiting the LA suburbs with her parents and asthmatic brother. It's July 1969, the smog is awful, the parents drink all day, and the astronauts are about to land on the moon. Don
Winner of the 1996 Writers@Work Fellowship in Fiction, this story takes place in a remote and eerie ghost town in the Eastern Sierra. Holly, a young archeologist grieving the death of her brother, fin
