Fiction

In When Mystical Creatures Attack!, Ms. Freedman’s high school English class writes essays in which mystical creatures resolve the greatest sociopolitical problems of our time. Students include Janice Gibbs, “a feral child with excessive eyeliner and an anti-authoritarian complex that would be interesting were it not so ill-informed,” and Cody Splunk, an aspiring writer working on a time machine. Following a nervous breakdown, Ms. Freedman corresponds with Janice and Cody from an insane asylum run on the capitalist model of cognitive-behavioral therapy, where inmates practice water aerobics to rebuild their Psychiatric Credit Scores.

Janice, Cody, and Ms. Freedman tell their stories through in-class essays, letters, therapeutic journal exercises, an advice column, a reality show television transcript, a diary, and a Methodist women’s fundraising cookbook. (Recipes include “Dark Night of the Soul Food,” “Render Unto Caesar Salad,” and “Valley of the Shadow of Death by Chocolate Cake.”) In “The Un-Game,” Janice’s chain-smoking nursing home charge composes dirty limericks. In “Virtue of the Month,” the ghost of Ms. Freedman’s mother argues that suicide is not a choice. In “The Hall of Old-Testament Miracles,” wax figures of Bible characters come to life, hungry for Cody’s flesh.

Set against a South Texas landscape where cicadas hum and the air smells of taco stands and jasmine flowers, these stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to achingly poignant. This surreal, exuberant collection mines the dark recesses of the soul while illuminating the human heart.

Read some excerpts here:

“When Mystical Creatures Attack” (Published in The Sun)

“The Un-Game” (Published in Booth Journal)

AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS

• Winner of The University of Iowa Press 2014 John Simmons Short Fiction Award

• Short story “Frankye” in Spring 2013 issue of The MacGuffin

• Top 25 list in March 2012 Glimmertrain “Family Matters” Contest

• Short story “When Mystical Creatures Attack!” in September 2011 issue of The Sun

• Short story “Recipes for Disaster” in May 2011 issue of Epiphany

• Short story “The Un-Game” in Booth Journal, Finalist in Booth Journal 2011 “Chapter One” Contest

• Honorable Mention in 2009 Glimmertrain “Family Matters” Contest

• Recipient of Syracuse’s 2008 Joyce Carol Oates Short Story Award

• Short story “One Useful Thing in My Life” published in May 2005 Stanford Alumni Magazine

• Recipient of Stanford’s 2004 Louis Sudler Award for Outstanding Writing

• Second Place in 2004 Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest