FOR THOSE WHO FAVOR FIRE: Short Stories

“In these surgically-crafted stories, Gary Wilson delivers bracingly honest and unsentimental portraits of ordinary people. The common theme is mortality. Facing it, avoiding it, causing it, even accepting it...Wilson has an artist’s eye. His characters are vividly rendered with deft brushstrokes. He paints a picture of small-town Midwest America with clean, spare prose. An impressive collection.”—Len Joy, the award-winning author of Everyone Dies Famous and American Past Time among other works.

“In this intriguing collection, Wilson’s sharply drawn characters, lonely as the bleak rural landscape that created them, are desperate to connect, whether they know it or not. They are presented with opportunities to do so, some as obvious as the need to deal with a newly discovered corpse, others as subtle as words that must be said in a fleeting instant. Will they act? Will they even notice they should? Written with brilliant economy, these unsettling stories will send a shudder down your spine and leave you with a desire to read everything else the author has to offer.”—Rita Dragonette, the author of The Fourteenth of September.

“Gary Wilson propels his short stories with quiet intensity in both his description and dialogue. Many of the stories in For Those Who Favor Fire use the geography of Kansas or another Midwestern setting, but each tale explores universal relationships among family or between strangers. These are not heroic or adventuresome tales, rather character reflections of people rooted in the land or just passing. Just as the renowned photographer Walker Evans captured images with his lens aimed at the stark truth of life in the Great Depression, Wilson's stories are both unadorned and revealing.”—Timothy J. McNulty, a former correspondent and editor at the Chicago Tribune and co-author of The Meanest Man in Congress, a biography of Jack Brooks.

Publishing date: July 29, 2022

Language: English

Paperback: 180 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1-956635-35-5

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.49 x 9 inches

Gary D. Wilson is the author of the novels Sing, Ronnie Blue and Getting Right.  Although his short fiction has appeared in numerous national literary magazines, For Those Who Favor Fire is his first published collection of stories.  His work has been recommended for a Pushcart Prize, and he was a finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the Drue Heinz Literary Prize.  He lives in Chicago.