V.S. Kemanis

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V.S. Kemanis

Goodreads Author


Born
in The United States
Website

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Member Since
December 2012

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Award-winning author V.S. Kemanis has a professional background in the law and the arts. As a lawyer, she worked many years as a litigator in New York’s criminal justice system and as a supervising editor of decisions for the busiest appellate court in the country. An accomplished dancer of ballet and contemporary styles, Kemanis has performed, choreographed, and taught dance in California, Colorado, and New York.

Short fiction by Ms. Kemanis has been published in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Crooked Road Volume 3, The Best Laid Plans, Me Too Short Stories, and Autumn Noir, among others. Her book, Your Pick: Selected Stories, won the Eric Hoffer Award for best story collection a
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Average rating: 4.23 · 422 ratings · 222 reviews · 26 distinct worksSimilar authors
Deep Zero

3.93 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 2018 — 4 editions
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A Dana Hargrove Double: Thu...

4.51 avg rating — 35 ratings
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Seven Shadows

4.29 avg rating — 35 ratings3 editions
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Forsaken Oath

4.45 avg rating — 33 ratings5 editions
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Thursday's List

3.79 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2012 — 6 editions
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Homicide Chart

4.21 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions
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Your Pick: Selected Stories

4.25 avg rating — 24 ratings3 editions
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Power Blind (Dana Hargrove #6)

4.12 avg rating — 24 ratings2 editions
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Indelicate Deception

4.27 avg rating — 22 ratings2 editions
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Love and Crime: Stories

4.13 avg rating — 15 ratings3 editions
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Free Short Story Substack

Closing out 2025, moving into 2026, I look forward to more fiction reading and writing.

In 2025, I started a (free to you!) Substack where I occasionally post short stories from my collections. Today, I posted “Reckoning” from my story collection Dust of the Universe, tales of family. Dust of the Universe, tales of family by V.S. Kemanis

Click here to go to “Reckoning.”

While you're over there, take a look through my other Substack posts. “Reckonin Read more of this blog post »
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Published on January 01, 2026 07:29 Tags: free-short-stories, happy-new-year, vs-kemanis-substack
Thursday's List Homicide Chart Forsaken Oath Deep Zero Seven Shadows Power Blind
(6 books)
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4.18 avg rating — 255 ratings

The Grapes of Wrath
V.S. Kemanis is currently reading
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Last Bus to Wisdo...
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V.S.’s Recent Updates

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James by Percival Everett
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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
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Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
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V.S. Kemanis and 66 other people liked Robin's review of The Safekeep:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
"The premise of this story is fantastic, and my favourite thing about the book.

I had hopes of a gothic, suspenseful journey with two women in a house, and a confrontation that would come, but before that, perhaps a manipulation and a defrosting of de" Read more of this review »
V.S. Kemanis and 125 other people liked Louise's review of The Safekeep:
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
"(2.5 stars rounded down)

I struggled with this book and judging by other reviews, I’m in the minority. Not alone, but in the minority. The story felt extremely slow and much longer than 272 pages. The characters didn’t appeal to me and nothing much ha" Read more of this review »
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Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Quotes by V.S. Kemanis  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“She’d discovered the beginnings of her adult person, her preference for lucidity, prudence, responsibility, and restraint. Tranquility could be eked from boredom, results from hard work.”
V.S. Kemanis, Malocclusion, tales of misdemeanor

“Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.”
V.S. Kemanis, Thursday's List

“Rage and despair shook her for minutes or hours. She was unaware of the passage of time. Finally spent, she retreated inward and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, the letter in shreds around her. The room had grown dark. Like a gentle snowfall, the cold mantle of an unbearable silence descended.”
V.S. Kemanis, Homicide Chart

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”
Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”
Ann Patchett, State of Wonder

“If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things that others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.”
Don DeLillo, Point Omega

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”
Barbara Kingsolver

“She lay in the dark and knew everything.”
Ian McEwan, Atonement

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Comments (showing 1-3)    post a comment »
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message 3: by Jenny

Jenny VS, thanks so much for noticing the Killer Nashville nom. I'm sorry I didn't see this till now!


message 2: by Jenny

Jenny VS, thanks so much for noticing the Killer Nashville nom. I'm sorry I didn't see this till now!


message 1: by V.S.

V.S. Kemanis Jill wrote: "Great to meet you V.S., and thank you for your friendship here on GRs. We seem to have gone along the same journey with sociology, the legal profession and the ballet. Amazing!"

Thanks, Jill! Interesting that I've met several lawyers in ballet class--must be all that discipline!


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