Hi folks. Here's what we've been up to this week:

Our editors shared some of the books that captured our attention this year, and we hope you'll enjoy them, too, if you look for them at your local library or bookstore. 

And this week's featured story, chosen by guest editor Nicholas Claro, was "Hunter's Depressed" by Patrick Dacey. 

I'd also like to mention a few upcoming books, not necessarily by past contributors, because it's easy to miss things at this time of year. First, I'm excited that Hitch, a second novel by early (and repeat) contributor Sara Levine, is forthcoming in January from Roxane Gay Books — a nice bit of synergy, with Roxane Gay being one of our earliest contributors, too, and serving as Writer In Residence during that project's run.

Also coming in January is Burner and Other Stories (Cornerstone Press) by Katrina Denza, a writer we've never published but whose work has been a constant during our era of reading and publishing fiction online, so I'm excited to see this collection arrive. 

And Hyper by Agri Ismaïl is another book to watch for, coming from Coffee House Press also in January.

Finally, I've been thinking this week about an essay by contributor Éireann Lorsung, "you there, boy—what day is it?: a case for being Ebenezeer Scrooge." Éireann writes,

Because it’s not, in the end, (though I love the Muppets version) a heartwarming story about Kermit the Frog-as-Bob Cratchit teaching a grump to love against the odds. It is a story about grief and longing and loneliness and getting old, and how the heart easily calcifies, and how, despite the ease with which we may become brittle and closed up in our private palaces bolstered by our stacks of cash, from time to time we may nevertheless encounter, be confronted by, the world in all its immediacy and transience and preciousness—and be broken open by that world. It is a story about what is still possible.

Having played Scrooge in my school's fourth grade production of A Christmas Carol (mercifully long before there was social media where old photos might haunt us like so many ghosts of selves past), I appreciate this reflective take on the character and his appeal. And just in time to encourage us to pause and consider him rather than change channels quickly when we think we (which is to say, I) already know his story too well.

Thanks for reading,

Steve Himmer