A photograph of Margaret Gibson taken by John Reeves appears in her story collection Desert Thirst, published in 1997. It is an arresting image for many reasons. The photograph is an extreme close-up, sharply focused, of a mature, unsmiling . . .
When she died in 2004, Lucia Berlin had published seventy-seven short stories, survived years of domestic abuse and alcoholism, travelled extensively throughout both American continents, and worked as a high school teacher, switchboard operator, hospital ward clerk, cleaning woman, and . . .
I had been living in Scotland for more than five years before I found The Living Mountain through two recommendations that came in quick succession: one was from Robert Macfarlane, speaking in St. Andrews, where I live, about nature writing, . . .