The human skill, the main human skill, is to establish irrational consensus where there is no basis for it.

“Hostility is definitely my main ingredient. It’s a muscle I’ve spent some time developing. But then there’s guilt and shame, too.”

  Rita Bullwinkel’s first story collection, Belly Up, is a kind of miracle. Imbued with darkness and absurdity, the stories in Belly Up announce Bullwinkel as a writer of deep intelligence and bold style. A snake thinks of himself as a pear in…

  Patrick Cottrell, who “opens up fresh lines of questioning in the old interrogations of identity, the politics of belonging, and the problem of other minds,” was born in Korea and raised in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Milwaukee. His work ha…