Stacey May Fowles

The singular voice of Emer McConnell, the narrator of Jane Urquhart’s latest novel, explains, “I was born twice, you see. Once gently, and once violently, which is why, although I am not yet old, I have the stick.” The opening pages of In Winter I Get Up at Night introduce unassuming Emer, a teacher living what appears to be a simple life in rural…

In The Future’s reimagined history, the French never ceded Fort Détroit to the British in 1760, and the British never ceded it to the United States as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Instead, the community has remained proudly French Canadian for centuries. (“Never forget we were two shakes away from becomin’ American,” a current resident proclaims.) But while the Motor City was once “full of…

The twitching core of anxiety is not always, as many would assume, the fear of a terrible thing in front of you. Instead, diagnosis-grade worry can stem from the hovering potential for terrible things. Most anxiety sufferers will report being entirely capable in a genuine crisis — think pandemic — but debilitated by life’s constant parade of question marks: social…