Ten-Word Tragedies

ABOUT THE BOOK Wandering lonely through the snow streets of New York I stumbled on a thrift store that sold postcards by the yard I bought a mile and shipped them home so I could read Ten thousand ten-word tragedies, the lives these strangers lead To remind myself the things I need Inspired by Frank Turner and his songs especially that evocative verse from Mittens the editors were delighted to learn that he really did find that box of postcards in a New York thrift store. Frank was kind enough to send us the box, and from it we chose a series of postcards and forwarded them to the writers in this book. Gaining inspiration from the postcards and their 'ten word tragedies', the contributors wrote an amazingly eclectic selection of tales moving, funny, horrific, bizarre, and delightful, these are the lives these strangers lead. CONTENTS I Am Here Michael Marshall Smith London Safe Stuart Neville The War Within Kelley Armstrong The New Boyfriend Scott Smith From the Living Room of Cottage 6 Josh Malerman Beat the Card Home Stephen Volk She Forgot The All, She Could Not Remember Anything But Longing Kelly Braffet Give Me Two Michael Koryta The Letter from Elsie Matt Bechtel I Hate to Leave This Delilah S. Dawson Howard Sturgis and the Letters and the Van and What He Found When He Went Back to His House Paul Tremblay The House in My Heart Rachel Autumn Deering Fort Lauderdale Rio Youers Broken For You Alyson Noel The Lions Keith Buckley The Same as the Air Alison Littlewood Lowcountry Tidings Dan Chaon Taproot Mike Carey Royal Gorge Frank Turner