Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 (10 page)

Crayon-face, it’s so simple.

She was born in October, her hair

white as any bone. Before long,

there was an apocalypse, and she forgot

how it felt to breathe underwater. Masquerader,

her hair turned blacker than any charcoal,

and she began to remember how it felt to exhale.

If you knew what she meant when she said she was

thirsty,

would you have asked in the first place?

*

The formula is this:

pity as the price of admission, a slip,

a stone, and something as common as hunger.

Everything here is made of wood,

soaked to the grain, or stolen. Charlatan,

her story is the same in any weather.

If you should find her ankle-deep

in floodwater, please take her plum-skin hand

and lead her farther in.

New and Recent Titles from Small Beer Press—all (except Alasdair Gray’s novel, oh well!) available as ebooks

Under the Poppy: a novel

Kathe Koja

$24 ∙ 978-1-931520-70-6

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Library Journal

Stories of Your Life and Others

Ted Chiang

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What I Didn’t See and Other Stories

Karen Joy Fowler

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Seattle Times

Meeks: a novel

Julia Holmes

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Meeks,
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Redemption in Indigo

Karen Lord

$16 ∙ 978-1-931520-66-9

“A clever, exuberant mix of Caribbean and Senegalese influences that balances riotously funny set pieces (many involving talking insects) with serious drama.”—
New York Times Book Review

Old Men in Love: John Tunnock’s Posthumous Papers

Alasdair Gray

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The Times
(London)

A Life on Paper: Stories

Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud

Translated by Edward Gauvin

$22 ∙ 978-1-931520-62-1

“A master craftsman, encapsulating weighty themes with pith and heart. In his hands, the short story is a Gothic cathedral whittled from a wine cork.”—
The Believer

The Poison Eaters & Other Stories

Holly Black

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
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Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)