The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers - There are women writing short stories today that take chances, risks—you might even call their work provocative

The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers, Richard Thomas, ed., Black Lawrence Press, 2015.

There are women writing short stories today that take chances, risks—you might even call their work provocative. The Lineup is a collection of twenty of the most compelling, powerful, and honest stories that have been published in the last five years. Written by some of the most talented contemporary voices in literature today, this collection contains award-winning, anthologized, and recognized authors that are emerging as the voices of our time. These women are not afraid to tackle any subject, to write from any perspective, or to lay any secret bare. If the stories in this collection don’t make you laugh, enlighten you, and break your heart, then you should check your pulse, because you’re probably not alive.

Stories by: Laura Benedict, Paula Bomer, Karen Brown, Shannon Cain, Kim Chinquee, Monica Drake, Kathy Fish, Amina Gautier, Tina May Hall, Nancy Hightower, Jessica Hollander, Holly Goddard Jones, Stacey Levine, Kelly Luce, Nina McConigley, ŸJanet Mitchell, ŸEthel Rohan, ŸKarin Tidbeck, Damien Angelica Walters, Claire Vaye Watkins

"These are stories that live on the edge of the cliff. They’re wild and unpredictable and important and wonderfully unsettling. Somewhere in this volume, you’ll find your new favorite voice."

—Rebecca Makkai

"The Lineup is full of ferocious, dark, and brilliant voices. The book as chorus both troubles and dazzles, as all great fiction does."—Lauren Groff

"The writers that make up The Lineup are more than just provocative. With its anorexic ragamuffins and organ-thieving medical students, its doomed shot-girls and exterminator-besotted housewives, this anthology will pry your eyes open wide and weeping with gratitude to the spectacle of lives being lived under transcendent duress. By turns searing, heartrending, hilarious, grim, profoundly tender and indelibly macabre." — Adrian Van Young