Whatever Happened to American Standard?

That had been a year ago and I asked to go back to general assignment reporting. Eventually they let me and there I was in my 40s doing what I’d first done in my 20s, filling a shrinking news hole from a shrunken newsroom for a paper with a dwindling readership competing against bloggers.

A Calm and Normal Heart by Chelsea T. Hicks

She starts her stories when her heroines are at a turning point, whether leaving a relationship or beginning a new one, fleeing a city or returning home, and shows that changing their situation gets them to where they need to go. Often her characters look to their heritage to lead the way, and a strong part of their heritage is language.

Dead Wrong

"Thanks, God. Thanks for the life you’ve given me, it wasn’t such a bad life. Dying at twenty-five isn’t so bad, it’s going out with a bang, right in the middle of the good part..."