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Already Gone: 40 Stories of Running Away
Did you ever wish, with every cell in your body, that you could run away? From home, from a person, from your job, from yourself? Physically or emotionally, on foot or purely in your own mind? In Already Gone, forty of today's most exciting writers take flight in all these ways and more. In an electrifying hybrid collection of fiction and memoir, authors such as Deesha Philyaw, Amber Sparks, and Lilly Dancyger finish what Thelma & Louise started. From a reimagined tale of Lot's wife fleeing a burning city to a secret elopement to avoid an arranged marriage, from a mother who wins the lottery and abandons her family to a rich man's obsessive search through space and time, from a drag queen who transforms into her fantasy to a teenager who walks the city streets at night in search of a way out, Already Gone is a collection of runaway stories that explores what it means to fly, to flee, to escape— to search for who we are. These stories and essays take us to dangerous places in order to free us from what holds us back.
- GenresAnthologiesShort Stories
203 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 14, 2023
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30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 7, 2023
This collection, as the title says, shares the theme of "running away" and depicts all the ways we, as humans, do that in life. From the first story, I was connected and transported. Each story (from the power-packed flash to those a bit longer) stands alone with stunning imagery, vital and vivid characters, heartbreak, triumph, and transformation. Each story is unique and distinct in its own way.
Though I flat-out LOVED a number of them, I can honestly say I enjoyed every piece in the collection. Compiled and edited by Hannah Grieco, I am truly grateful to have received an advance digital copy and to be able to say - GET THIS COLLECTION!
Out next Tuesday 11/14. Cheers and thanks to all the writers as well.
Though I flat-out LOVED a number of them, I can honestly say I enjoyed every piece in the collection. Compiled and edited by Hannah Grieco, I am truly grateful to have received an advance digital copy and to be able to say - GET THIS COLLECTION!
Out next Tuesday 11/14. Cheers and thanks to all the writers as well.
December 20, 2023
Full disclosure: One of the forty stories is mine.
Did you know there were so many ways to run away? A fast car. A little boy's own fast feet. Shape-shifting into a bird then taking flight. Throwing on a hide, making an offering, then joining a wolf pack. Or in one's own dreams, be they asleep or awake.
It's a universal urge, though a deeply personal one. It's something we keep from those we're closest to, because escape is not often a team sport. In the words of contributor Deesha Philyaw from her story "Mother's Day"
Can you "It's not you, it's me" your kids? Do you tell them how you'd never had a chance to
figure out who you are, other than somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, and somebody's
discarded wife? And how you never had a chance, until now?
These forty unique takes on the subject range from the gritty-realistic to the far-fetched surreal. Editor Hannah Grieco crafted something more than a mere collection of words. It's a mode of transportation that is more buoyant than the sum of its parts. So crack the spine, and float away.
Did you know there were so many ways to run away? A fast car. A little boy's own fast feet. Shape-shifting into a bird then taking flight. Throwing on a hide, making an offering, then joining a wolf pack. Or in one's own dreams, be they asleep or awake.
It's a universal urge, though a deeply personal one. It's something we keep from those we're closest to, because escape is not often a team sport. In the words of contributor Deesha Philyaw from her story "Mother's Day"
Can you "It's not you, it's me" your kids? Do you tell them how you'd never had a chance to
figure out who you are, other than somebody's mama, somebody's daughter, and somebody's
discarded wife? And how you never had a chance, until now?
These forty unique takes on the subject range from the gritty-realistic to the far-fetched surreal. Editor Hannah Grieco crafted something more than a mere collection of words. It's a mode of transportation that is more buoyant than the sum of its parts. So crack the spine, and float away.
April 3, 2024
Ever wanna get away? Of course you do. Sometimes. Usually. Always. Whenever. Now? Sure, why not.
I am drawn to collections of short stories for their style, beauty, economy, craft, and punch. Shorts are also an easy means of escape, because sometimes we all need to, well, get away. Even if only for a little while, even if only in our brains.
This anthology of forty stories, Already Gone, compiled and edited by Hannah Grieco, delivers. When I first picked up this collection, I had intended to glean from writers like Amber Sparks, Aubry Hirsch, and Deesha Philyaw—so many great writers between the covers of one book!—to better understand how they conjure their enviable magic. How they make it look so easy. But I instead found myself immersed and lost in the narratives, simply reading—sometimes laughing, sometimes catching my breath—swept away with all these characters already gone.
There are too many to pick a favorite, but one I enjoyed was Megha Nyar’s “Blueprint for Elopement” in which two lovers individually abandon their families, pull away in piecemeal fashion, over the course of months in order to avoid detection, to start a new life together. And I don’t think I took a single breath during Matthew E. Henry’s “It’s Exactly What You Think,” while following “a Black man somewhere between eleven and death” navigate the road and a diner located in a Subaru-and-BLM-hashtag-packed suburb fraught with some serious “WWPS” a.k.a., “Weird White People Shit.”
Grab this collection now. Read it. Learn from it. Enjoy it. And get away.
I am drawn to collections of short stories for their style, beauty, economy, craft, and punch. Shorts are also an easy means of escape, because sometimes we all need to, well, get away. Even if only for a little while, even if only in our brains.
This anthology of forty stories, Already Gone, compiled and edited by Hannah Grieco, delivers. When I first picked up this collection, I had intended to glean from writers like Amber Sparks, Aubry Hirsch, and Deesha Philyaw—so many great writers between the covers of one book!—to better understand how they conjure their enviable magic. How they make it look so easy. But I instead found myself immersed and lost in the narratives, simply reading—sometimes laughing, sometimes catching my breath—swept away with all these characters already gone.
There are too many to pick a favorite, but one I enjoyed was Megha Nyar’s “Blueprint for Elopement” in which two lovers individually abandon their families, pull away in piecemeal fashion, over the course of months in order to avoid detection, to start a new life together. And I don’t think I took a single breath during Matthew E. Henry’s “It’s Exactly What You Think,” while following “a Black man somewhere between eleven and death” navigate the road and a diner located in a Subaru-and-BLM-hashtag-packed suburb fraught with some serious “WWPS” a.k.a., “Weird White People Shit.”
Grab this collection now. Read it. Learn from it. Enjoy it. And get away.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews