Anne Leigh Parrish’s debut story collection, All The Roads That Lead From Home, won the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards silver medal for best short story fiction. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Clackamas Literary Review, among other publications. She is the fiction editor for Eclectica Magazine. She lives in Seattle. To learn more, visit her at www.anneleighparrish.com.
about OUR LOVE COULD
You know the Dugans. They’re that scrappy family that lives down the street. Their yard is overgrown, they don’t pick up after their dog, their five children run free—leaving chaos in their wake—and the father hasn’t earned a cent in years. The wife holds them together on her income alone. You wouldn’t want them for neighbors—but from a distance, they’re quite entertaining. Set in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, the twelve linked stories of Our Love Could Light The World depict a dysfunctional family that’s messy and rude, cruel and kind, and loyal to the end.
The 2013 International Books awards named Our Love Could Light The World a Finalist in the short story category — check out the announcement here, under Fiction: Short Story!
Our Love Could Light the World has been named on the Kirkus list of recommended books in the “Indie” category. It also received a great review from Souvenir.
about WHAT IS FOUND, WHAT IS LOST
Freddie was raised on faith. It’s in her blood. Yet rather than seeking solace from the Almighty when she loses her husband of many years, she enters a state of quiet contemplation—until her daughter, and then her sister, each come home with a host of problems of their own, and her solitude is brought to an end.
As Freddie helps her daughter and sister deal with their troubles, her own painful past—a wretched childhood at the hands of an unbalanced, pious mother—begins to occupy her thoughts more than ever, as does Anna, the grandmother she’s always wished she’d known better. Freddie feels that she and Anna are connected, not just through blood but through the raising of difficult daughters, and it’s a kinship that makes her wonder what unseen forces have shaped her life. With all that to hand, a new family crisis rears its head—and it forces Freddie to confront the questions she’s asked so many times: What does it mean to believe in God? And does God even care?