Essays in this collection have been recently and prominently published: "Still God Helps You: Memories of a Sudanese Child Slave," first published in Wilson Quarterly (2013), was a Byliner exclusive, recognized by The Atlantic as one of the year's "Fantastic Pieces of Journalism," and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. "Circle of Friends" was published in Amtrak's Arrive magazine (July/August 2014). "A Solemn Pleasure" appeared in the David Shields/Bradford Morrow anthology The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death. "Finding Ashton" and an excerpt from "Doxology" appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine. Melissa Pritchard is a prolific writer whose fiction and nonfiction has been anthologized in over fifteen books and appeared in over sixty literary journals. She is also an award-winning teacher of creative writing at Arizona State University, and has amassed a devoted following among her students. Pritchard's extraordinary storytelling skills, developed as a fiction writer, lend themselves perfectly to conveying the stories of her travels, spiritual pursuits, historical research, and empathy for the people who have crossed her path. Inaugural book in Bellevue Literary Press' new The Art of the Essay series, with a Foreword by bestselling novelist and Harvard University Director of Creative Writing Bret Anthony Johnston.

From an acclaimed and award-winning young writer comes an intensely moving debut collection set in the eye of life's storms. In Corpus Christi, Texas--a town often hit by hurricanes-- parents, children, and lovers come together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain.
A car accident joins strangers linked by an intimate knowledge of madness. A teenage boy remembers his father's act of sudden and self-righteous violence. A "hurricane party" reunites a couple whom tragedy parted. And, in an unforgettable three-story cycle, an illness sets in profound relief a man's relationship with his mother and the odd, shifting fidelity of truth to love.
Told in fresh, lyrical voices and taut, inventive styles, these narratives explore the complex volatility of love and intimacy, sorrow and renewal--and expose how often these experiences feel like the opposite of themselves. From the woman whose young son's uncanny rapport with snakes illuminates her own missed opportunities to the man confronting his wife and her lover in a house full of illegal exotic birds, all the characters here face moments of profound decision and recognition in which no choice is clearly or completely right.
Writing with tough humor, deep humanity, and a keen eye for the natural environment, Bret Anthony Johnston creates a world where where cataclysmic events cut people loose from their "regular lives, floating and spiraling away from where we had been the day before." Corpus Christi is a extraordinarily ambitious debut. It marks the arrival of an important, exquisitely talented voice to American fiction.

"From the Hardcover edition."

'A gorgeous, accomplished debut' David Mitchell By internationally bestselling author Bret Anthony Johnston, WINNER of the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2017. In Corpus Christi, Texas - a town often hit by hurricanes - parents, children, and lovers come together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain. A car accident joins strangers linked by an intimate knowledge of madness. A teenage boy remembers his father's act of sudden and self-righteous violence. A 'hurricane party' reunites a couple whom tragedy parted. And, in an unforgettable three-story cycle, an illness heals a man's relationship with his mother and reveals the odd, shifting fidelity of truth to love. Writing with tough humor, deep humanity, and a keen eye for the natural environment, Bret Anthony Johnston creates a world where cataclysmic events cut people loose from their 'regular lives, floating and spiraling away from where we had been the day before.'