Tommy Orange leans against the wall near the entrance of the large spotlit room in which the reception for the National Book Critics Circle Awards is being held. He’s noticeably taller than the other partygoers, with a round, boyish face topped with a silky mop of black hair.

I think a lot about snow globes. We did not have snow globes in small town Alabama where I was raised. I’m fascinated by them probably because they were not in my childhood. The contained experience of a snow globe, when you pick it up and shake it…

Pingmei Lan’s short story, “Cicadas and the Dead Chairman,” which appeared in Epiphany’s Fall/Winter 2018 issue, has been named a winner of the prestigious PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize.

The anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life brings together complex and confident stories from an impressive list of authors.

Kwon’s book delicately explores the kind of longing that draws one person into a cult, while another can walk away. There are no excuses given here, no clichéd attempts at forgiveness, just an empathetic examination of how violence and religious fanaticism can be so attractive to those looking for redemption.

Ornela Vorpsi’s The Country Where No One Ever Dies (Dalkey Archive 2009) belongs among the very best post-communist novels.