Additional information
by Marian Crotty (Author)
Featured in Electric Lit's "15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Winter"
Award-winning author Marian Crotty's sophomore collection centers on resilient female protagonists and offers a view into queer life and love outside of its major coastal cities. The characters in Crotty's collection are searching--for understanding, acceptance, or forgiveness.
In the title story, an elderly rape crisis volunteer's advocacy for a survivor leads her to reexamine her role in estrangement from her son; in "Halloween," a queer teen is counseled through heartbreak by her unlucky-in-love grandmother; and in "Family Resemblance," a group of families whose children share the same sperm donor is disrupted by the arrival of a minor celebrity.
While marginalization, loneliness, and bigotry hover in the distance of Near Strangers, the book's tone is hopeful and invites readers to reflect on our shared human experience with empathy.
Author Biography
Marian Crotty is the author of the short story collections: Near Strangers, winner of the 2023 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, and What Counts as Love, winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She has received fellowships or scholarships from Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the US Fulbright Program. She is an Associate Professor of Writing at Loyola University Maryland and a contributing editor at The Common. She grew up in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina and now lives in Baltimore.
