Kirby writes with boundless humor, a confidence and ease with strange premises, and yet there is always that flash of a fang or a blade or a Sharpie, reminding you to pay closer attention.” Kirby's wildly unique stories, I felt like she had altered the universe a little, created a new element, opened up some fault lines in the earth. “When I reached the end of every single one of Gwen E. 'Kirby has mastered the art of short fiction.A stunning collection from a writer whose talent and creativity seem boundless.' From 'The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886' to the 'Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories,' Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling her, we have always been this way. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse to be secondary characters a moment longer.

Kirby experiments with found structures-a Yelp review, a WikiHow article-which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.Ĭassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. Her characters might be naïve, even reckless, but they aren’t about to be victims: They’re strong, and brave, and nearly always capable of rescuing themselves.” “Kirby takes joy in subverting the reader’s expectations at every turn. “Kirby has mastered the art of short fiction…A stunning collection from a writer whose talent and creativity seem boundless.”

Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby