About the 'Already Gone' Anthology
“Already Gone: 40 Stories of Running Away”
Did you ever wish, with every cell in your body, that you could run away? From home, from a person, from your job, from yourself? Physically or emotionally, on foot or purely in your own mind? In Already Gone, forty of today’s most exciting writers take flight in all these ways and more.
In an electrifying hybrid collection of fiction and memoir, authors such as Deesha Philyaw, Amber Sparks, and Lilly Dancyger finish what Thelma & Louise started. From a reimagined tale of Lot’s wife fleeing a burning city to a secret elopement to avoid an arranged marriage, from a mother who wins the lottery and abandons her family to a rich man’s obsessive search through space and time, from a drag queen who transforms into her fantasy to a teenager who walks the city streets at night in search of a way out, Already Gone is a collection of runaway stories that explores what it means to fly, to flee, to escape—to search for who we are. These stories and essays take us to dangerous places in order to free us from what holds us back.
Edited by HANNAH GRIECO | Coming in November from Alan Squire Publishing
Reviews
“The artistry on display within Already Gone is next level—these are not just stories, they’re offramps and exit routes for readers and writers looking to break free from the ho-hum mundanity of daily living. Here is an oasis. Grieco has curated a vibrant, pulsing mosaic of human experience.” ~ Chris Gonzalez, author of I’m Not Hungry but I Could Eat
“Escapist lit at its best, the Already Gone anthology features forty stories infused with humanity and heart. Without pretense, the collection presents new definitions of what it means to be present, gone, and left behind. Grieco’s skillful and empathetic editing is evident in each of the selected works. Readers will find well-known names interspersed with new writers, stories of love and relationships, pain and loss, movement and stasis, community and individuality, with touches of humor. Through the integration of a range of stories, readers can feel and identify with the overarching theme. But there’s more here – a rawness, an emotionality that makes each story memorable on its own and together; a guidebook to running away from, and towards, life.” ~ Amy Cipolla Barnes, author of Mother Figures, Ambrotypes, and Child Craft
“There’s something deeply human about the urge to run away. We all, at one point or another, have longed for escape—be it from the mundane, the stress, or the fear that exists in our daily lives. Those feelings are captured succinctly, and sometimes beautifully, in the new release of short stories from Alan Squire Publishing.” ~ Sarah Marloff, arts editor at Washington City Paper