WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE. MARY HAMILTON. ROSE METAL PRESS

WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE
MARY HAMILTON

Winner of the Rose Metal Press Fourth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest,
Judged by Dinty W. Moore

In We Know What We Are, worlds are made, torn apart, drowned. The stories go small: a girl ties a ribbon on a present. The stories go big: a war is raged against the evening sky. The characters in these thirteen short short fictions find themselves in less-than-desirable circumstances. They know their plights. They acknowledge their situations. They give in. They overcome. They daydream a world where everything will be all right.

“The concise stories in this dynamic collection are bursting with moments of stark urgency and un- expected humor, with imagery that moves seamlessly from the bizarre to the oddly familiar, and situations that shift from the ludicrous to the undeniably sad.

Mary Hamilton’s fiction is dream-like, precise, fresh, unexpected, cumulative, delightful, and at times, incantatory. She is a tenacious writer, working each word, each sentence, each image, the way a carver works the stone. It is fun, and fascinating, to see where she goes next.”
—Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic and Desire

Mary Hamilton is a writer, teacher, and optician living in Chicago, where she is also the co-host and co-founder of the QUICKIES! Reading Series. Her work has been published by Smokelong Quarterly, Storyglossia, Pindeldyboz, Eclectica, Dogzplot, and Thieves Jargon, among others, and has been included in the Best of the Web anthology. She blogs about inspirational sports movies at inspirationalsportsmovies.blogspot.com.

About the Press

Founded in January 2006 by Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney, Rose Metal Press is an independent publisher of literary works in hybrid and hard-to-classify genres. Recent books include a book of linked prose poems Tinderbox Lawn by Carol Guess, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field, edited by Tara L. Masih, and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice, edited by Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rzicznek. Rose Metal Press runs an annual chapbook contest for manuscripts of short short stories.