Doug Ramspeck

 
Overview

In the title story of The Owl That Carries Us Away, the young protagonist finds a possum skull in his back yard, washes it with a hose, carries it into the house, and sleeps with it in his bed. Only later does the reader come to understand how the skull connects to a recent near-tragedy in the household. In other stories, a newly-married woman imagines that mushrooms are growing from her husband’s body, a funeral director is robbed by a teenage boy outside of an NFDA convention in Chicago, a woman with memory loss falls back in love with her abusive dead husband, a child comes to believe that his father is a bear, and a woman absconds with her sister’s baby and envisions a life for them in Florida. Winner G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. Bronze Winner Independent Publisher Award (IPPY).

 
Overview

The twelve stories in Dancing in Their Dead Mother’s Dresses chronicle the intersections of longing and loss. A boy hides a dead crow in his closet while missing his absent father, two young girls dance in their dead mother’s dresses, a neurodivergent man passes decades in love with his brother’s wife, a young girl copes with the loss of her mother by devoting all of her energy to her dog “Ketchup,” a homeless father forces his son to sell chocolates door to door for pretend cancer victims, and a married man loves his wife but can’t stop obsessing about the tenant next door.

Stories from the collection appeared originally in journals that include The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, New Letters, Cincinnati Review, South Carolina Review, and Narrative Magazine. One of the stories, “Balloon,” was listed as a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories 2019. Another, “Snow Crow,” received First Place in the Bath Flash Fiction 19th Award. Two additional stories were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.