Where had I gone wrong? In four years as a mother, I thought I’d done a good job. So where had I failed? I pictured myself twenty years hence, cornered by a crime reporter. “I tried my best,” I’d sob. “But he began dealing in stolen property at four, and it was downhill from there . . .”
An explosion of splinters stabs up his spine. Carrick’s eyes shutter open. Where the fuck am I? . . .
Walking through the weeds of a highway shoulder at night. That was okay. She’d check on Valerie and finish off the bit on Joey’s mirror. Whenever cars passed she turned and stuck out her thumb like she was in a movie. She felt ridiculous, but a car pulled over. Milk ran up to it, got in, and came to in the morning in the weeds of another shoulder . . .
To celebrate the release of Katia D. Ulysse’s Drifting, we’re very pleased to feature a guest post from Katia on her writing process, her inspiration, and three additional fiction vignettes that are not found in her debut collection.
To celebrate the release of Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night — the latest release in Akashic’s Kaylie Jones Books imprint, and one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Summer Books of 2014 — Kaylie Jones sat down to talk with debut novelist Barbara J. Taylor about her inspiration, her writing process, and what keeps her going.
The nurse pulled onto the outer road parallel to the interstate. The blue friendliness of the St. Luke’s sign radiated faintly in the dawn light as he accelerated before the red admonition of the emergency sign took over his view. He clicked off the malfunctioning turn signal. The morning traffic was light, almost nonexistent. He waited until he had reached forty-five miles an hour to remove his skull-and-bones do-rag, the first phase of his elaborate post-work ritual . . .
A typical Thursday. A typical night.
Jerry stretched his feet under the dining table, yawning. His eleventh grade math homework seemed to glare at him from the fluorescent white of the overhead light. They were covering probability in class, something Jerry knew plenty about.
There was a thump above him.
Typical Thursday night . . .
Click to listen to an excerpt of the new audiobook edition Go de Rass to Sleep, as read by worldwide reggae superstar Shaggy!