First Lines
Even though it was spring, God’s time for new life and rebirth, beneath three feet of hard-packed dirt, the baby wouldn’t stop crying.
Unlike back in Asheville, real flowers were hard to come by at Grandma Charko’s house. But they were necessary. Two weeks ago Sylvia had grabbed a handful of zinnias from the neighbor’s garden. Last week she’d lifted roses from the top of a shiny gravestone. Yesterday she’d even sacrificed the carnation Grandma received at church, pressing it down into the dry, unyielding ground.
“See, baby? See what a seed can do?”
But still the baby kept crying.
Collection Reviews
“If Julie C. Day was a singer she’d have a five-octave range. This is a collection of astonishing variety and power. She is one of those alchemists of the short story who offers uncomplicated engagement, while provoking knotty thoughts and mutable responses. This is not merely a promising debut, it is simply astonishing.”
–Andrew Hedgecock, Collection Review Interzone
Praise for the Collection
“Julie C. Day’s new collection, Uncommon Miracles, relates stories about what happens when strangeness, dream-like and nightmarish, infiltrates the lives of everyday people. A unique new voice in short fiction – sharp writing and a wonderfully idiosyncratic imagination.”
—Jeffrey Ford, author of The Girl in the Glass, The Physiognomy, The Drowned Life, A Natural History of Hell, and many others.
World Fantasy Award winner, Nebula Award winner, Shirley Jackson Award winner, Edgar Allan Poe Award winner.
“A collection of stories to unsettle your dreams and make the world a stranger and more delightful place.”
—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble, Stranger Things Happen, and Magic for Beginners.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Hugo Award winner, Nebula Award winner, World Fantasy Award winner.
“Julie C. Day makes a bold debut with this genre-bending collection of stories. At times whimsical, at times heartbreaking, but always clear-eyed and honest, Uncommon Miracles proves that Day has joined the front ranks of the writers carrying American fantasy into a new golden age.”
—Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters and The Visible Filth.
“Julie C. Day’s stories are strongly strange, whether happening in a sort of now in this country or in a weirdly altered past. These stories seem to be what the term American Gothic was meant for.”
—John Crowley, author of Little, Big and the Ægypt tetralogy.
World Fantasy Award winner for Best Novel, World Fantasy award winner for Life Achievement, & recipient of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
The Collection
My debut collection Uncommon Miracles contains eighteen stories, many of which have been previous published in venues such as the Cream City Review, Interzone, Black Static, and Farrago’s Wainscot. A few of the stories will be finding their way into the world for the very first time.