The gripping, thought-provoking stories in Yxta Maya Murray’s latest collection find their inspiration in the headlines. Here, ordinary people negotiate tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. A nurse volunteers to serve in catastrophe-stricken Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and discovers that her skill and compassion are useless in the face of stubborn governmental inertia. An Environmental Protection Agency employee, whose agricultural-worker parents died after long exposure to a deadly pesticide, finds herself forced to find justifications for reversing regulations that had earlier banned the chemical. A Department of Education employee in a dystopic future America visits a highly praised charter school and discovers the horrific consequences of academic failure. A transgender trainer of beauty pageant contestants takes on a beautiful Latina for the Miss USA pageant and brings her to perfection and the brink of victory, only to discover that she has a fatal secret.
The characters in The World Doesn't Work That Way, but it Could grapple with the consequences of frightening attitudes and policies pervasive in the United States today. The stories explore not only our distressing human capacity for moral numbness in the face of evil, but also reveal our surprising stores of compassion and forgiveness. These brilliantly conceived and beautifully written stories are troubling yet irresistible mirrors of our time.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
SKYLIT: Ramy Youssef w/ Lance Morgan
SKYLIT: Shy Watson, ”HORROR VACUI”
SKYLIT: Tracy Swinton Bailey, ”FOREVER FREE”
SKYLIT: Jonathan Wells, ”THE SKINNY” w/ David St. John
SKYLIT: James Sie, ”ALL KINDS OF OTHER”
SKYLIT: Darrel J. McLeod, ”PEYAKOW”
SKYLIT: Rafia Zakaria, ”AGAINST WHITE FEMINISM”
SKYLIT: Shugri Said Salh, ”THE LAST NOMAD”
SKYLIT: Camille Roy, ”HONEY MINE” w/ Michelle Tea
SKYLIT: Margret Grebowicz, ”MOUNTAINS AND DESIRE”
SKYLIT: Lucy J Santos, ”HALF LIVES”
SKYLIT: Alix Ohlin, ”WE WANT WHAT WE WANT”
SKYLIT: NYU Poetry Program Reading
SKYLIT: Keenan Norris, "THE CONFESSION OF COPELAND CANE" w/ Tongo Eisen-Martin
SKYLIT: Jon Hale, "THE CHOICE WE FACE" w/ Eddie Cole
SKYLIT: Nawaaz Ahmed, "RADIANT FUGITIVES" w/ Natashia Deón
SKYLIT: Benjamin Hedin, "UNDER THE SPELL" w/ Maaza Mengiste
SKYLIT: Pedro Mairal, "THE WOMAN FROM URUGUAY" w/ Jennifer Croft
SKYLIT: Allyson Brantley, "BREWING A BOYCOTT"
SKYLIT: Marissa Levien, "THE WORLD GIVES WAY"
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