Author Description

These twenty stories and twelve sonnets by award-winning author Ted Morrissey are collected here for the first time. Arranged chronologically, they trace his literary development over four decades, beginning in the early 1990s and including work produced within the last few years. Among the earliest stories are "Fische Stories" (published in Glimmer Train Stories) and "Mix" (Paris Transcontinental); transitional stories include "Communion with the Dead" (The Chariton Review) and "Melvill in the Marquesas" (the opening section of his novella Weeping with an Ancient God, named a Best Book of 2015 by Chicago Book Review); and there are three previously uncollected Crowsong stories, extensions of his multi-award-winning 2017 novel Crowsong for the Stricken (which Kirkus Reviews called "strange and beautiful" in a starred review and named a Best Indie Book of 2017). The sonnets are his Laertes Sonnet Sequence (appearing in such journals as Bellevue Literary Review, Grand Little Things and Prime Number Magazine), written in apostrophe to his father Vince, who passed away suddenly in 2012. The collection begins with the author's newly written introduction "Delta of Cassiopeia" in which he shares lessons learned from a lifetime of writing and teaching writing as well as anecdotes about some of the collected material. The introduction also discusses the state of the publishing industry and the reasons why most writers have difficulty establishing a devoted readership.