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They Kept Running: Stories
They Kept Running takes its title from a story about three women running in a national park in the Arizona desert, where they are warned to watch out for mountain lions and the heat, but where the real threat they encounter is men in a jeep. This collection of fifty-seven small stories catalogs the lives of women and girls as they grapple with the hazards of navigating the human world.
“In this taut collection of flash fiction, Michelle Ross weaves together fairy tales and horror, beauty and the grotesque, to inhabit the intersections of gender, sexuality, violence, and romantic love. Each story draws the reader into a sharply etched world studded with tension. A seemingly safe domestic life turns, just slightly to reveal its hidden dangers. For the girl and woman characters at the center of this book, the call is often coming from inside the house, and Ross is unafraid to look directly at what lurks on the other end of the line.”—Meagan Cass, author of ActivAmerica and judge
“Michelle Ross gives us the world of women in three parts in this extraordinary collection of flash fictions. Sharply observant and unexpected, often harrowing, these stories are just long enough to make their mark and leave us gasping. Danger in various forms lurks in these pages and for the girls, adolescents, and women who inhabit them. The writing is layered and precise, rich in metaphor and startling juxtapositions. The girls and women depicted in Ross’s stories are by turns innocent and knowing, vulnerable and mighty. They Kept Running is an intelligent, inventive, and utterly compelling masterwork by a writer at the height of her powers.” –Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Work
“Michelle Ross is a magnificent conjurer. She waves her pencil and no one can guess what will arise out of her fictional ether. These stories use science experiments, fables, horror movies, the Girl Scout handbook, and the core elements of what it means to tell a story itself to string themselves tight as a clothesline with tension from end to end. Run and get your copy.” –Sherrie Flick, author of Thank Your Lucky Stars
“I’ve read over a hundred Michelle Ross stories now, and with each new tale, I feel as if I’m discovering a new writer, embarking on a grand adventure, meeting a character I’ve never before considered possible. With this third collection, Ross has proven herself not only one of our most innovative and smart (and prolific) storytellers, but she has also evolved into one of our great satirists, every piece buzzing with commentary and comedy. Whether Ross is lampooning overblown masculinity or spoofing misguided intellectualism, she strikes a truth every time, making They Kept Running a joyous, entertaining, and memorable read, her best effort yet.” —Michael Czyzniejewski, author of I Will Love You for the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories
“What I love about Michelle Ross is her mastery of voice—that wry, thoughtful delivery that opens a door into the stories she shares, that lets the reader peek in through the crack—and her use of language: musical and magical and, ultimately, believable and true. Finally, finally, we have this flash collection that I have been waiting for since I first read the opening story. What I love about Michelle Ross is that her writing exists in this world and I am lucky enough to read it.” –Cathy Ulrich, author of Ghosts of You
“In this taut collection of flash fiction, Michelle Ross weaves together fairy tales and horror, beauty and the grotesque, to inhabit the intersections of gender, sexuality, violence, and romantic love. Each story draws the reader into a sharply etched world studded with tension. A seemingly safe domestic life turns, just slightly to reveal its hidden dangers. For the girl and woman characters at the center of this book, the call is often coming from inside the house, and Ross is unafraid to look directly at what lurks on the other end of the line.”—Meagan Cass, author of ActivAmerica and judge
“Michelle Ross gives us the world of women in three parts in this extraordinary collection of flash fictions. Sharply observant and unexpected, often harrowing, these stories are just long enough to make their mark and leave us gasping. Danger in various forms lurks in these pages and for the girls, adolescents, and women who inhabit them. The writing is layered and precise, rich in metaphor and startling juxtapositions. The girls and women depicted in Ross’s stories are by turns innocent and knowing, vulnerable and mighty. They Kept Running is an intelligent, inventive, and utterly compelling masterwork by a writer at the height of her powers.” –Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Work
“Michelle Ross is a magnificent conjurer. She waves her pencil and no one can guess what will arise out of her fictional ether. These stories use science experiments, fables, horror movies, the Girl Scout handbook, and the core elements of what it means to tell a story itself to string themselves tight as a clothesline with tension from end to end. Run and get your copy.” –Sherrie Flick, author of Thank Your Lucky Stars
“I’ve read over a hundred Michelle Ross stories now, and with each new tale, I feel as if I’m discovering a new writer, embarking on a grand adventure, meeting a character I’ve never before considered possible. With this third collection, Ross has proven herself not only one of our most innovative and smart (and prolific) storytellers, but she has also evolved into one of our great satirists, every piece buzzing with commentary and comedy. Whether Ross is lampooning overblown masculinity or spoofing misguided intellectualism, she strikes a truth every time, making They Kept Running a joyous, entertaining, and memorable read, her best effort yet.” —Michael Czyzniejewski, author of I Will Love You for the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories
“What I love about Michelle Ross is her mastery of voice—that wry, thoughtful delivery that opens a door into the stories she shares, that lets the reader peek in through the crack—and her use of language: musical and magical and, ultimately, believable and true. Finally, finally, we have this flash collection that I have been waiting for since I first read the opening story. What I love about Michelle Ross is that her writing exists in this world and I am lucky enough to read it.” –Cathy Ulrich, author of Ghosts of You
- GenresShort Stories
212 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2022
About the author
Michelle Ross
11 books37 followersMichelle Ross is the author of the story collections There's So Much They Haven't Told You, winner of the 2016 Moon City Short Fiction Award, and Shapeshifting, winner of the 2020 Stillhouse Press Short Fiction Award (November 2021). Her third story collection They Kept Running won the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and is forthcoming in Spring 2022. Her fiction has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Electric Literature, Witness, and many other venues. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and the Wigleaf Top 50, among other anthologies. She is fiction editor of Atticus Review. www.michellenross.com
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 15, 2022
I am a HUGE FAN of Michelle Ross's work, and They Kept Running fully delivers: it's Ross's best book yet. This is a superb short story collection: hilarious, harrowing, ferocious,and innovative. I read it cover-to-cover on an airplane because I couldn't put it down. This is a brilliant writer with extraordinary range, at the height of her powers.
January 11, 2022
Perhaps I'm biased, but I think these stories are pretty great. :)
May 22, 2022
Skillfully layered stories--and for a collection of 50+ stories, impressively consistent!
December 3, 2023
Here are stories of women and girls, of childhood and betweenhood and adulthood. Ross leads us across the tightrope of modern living. She often makes us fall, go missing. But props us back up and keeps us running. I like Ross best when she slips into the surreal ("Knife Rules", "Fish Story") or when science seems to be the subject ("Glow", "Why Science Lessons Involving Potatoes Give Me Grief") or when she gets too familiar ("One or Two") or when she finds my seriously sad funny bone ("Tea Kettles). No wonder she won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize.
June 13, 2022
One of the best collections of flash fiction I've read. These stories are heartfelt, funny at times, insightful, tragic, and, above all, captivating.
July 13, 2022
Here is my review of this amazing collection in Bending Genres:
https://bendinggenres.com/michelle-ro...
https://bendinggenres.com/michelle-ro...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews