Driftless Unsolicited Novella

So true to mixed experience, it feels defiant.—Sofia Samatar, winner of the World Fantasy AwardIn this timely and instantly notable fiction debut, Haris Durrani immerses readers in the life of a young American Muslim struggling to understand himself in the context of his family, classmates, and contemporary urban life. Engineering student Jihad, or "Joe" as he introduces himself in the confusing intersections of post 9/11 New York City, finds himself on a personal quest of possibly a spiritual nature, even if he isn't sure that's what it is — after all, it's hard enough to keep halal in his Dominican-Pakistani-Muslim Washington Heights household. He's surprised to find himself in the stories his Uncle Tomás tells of his own youth, stories in which Tomás fights both the devil and the weaknesses of the flesh — often at the same time. Culture, nation, religion, family, identity, race, and time battle for dominion over Jihad until he realizes he is facing the same demon his uncle claims to have defeated, and all Jihad has to fight with is himself. Durrani's stories, memoirs, and essays have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The University of Toronto Undergraduate Journal of Middle East Studies, The 2014 Campbellian Anthology, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and The Best Teen Writing of 2012, 2011, and 2010. He writes monthly for altMuslimah and has appeared regularly on John Hockenberry's NPR show The Takeaway.

When orphan Charlotte Herring arrives at Ivywood Manor, nothing in her experience has prepared her for the gauntlet of living in the ancestral home of the discordant van Kirks. Mr. van Kirk's decision to adopt her is as cloaked in silence as is the truth of Charlotte's past. When the patriarch's preference for Charlotte spawns a one-sided rivalry between her and his son, the injurious dynamic stands in the way of Charlotte's attempts to unravel the family's secrets and her own. Charlotte sleuths from her position at the margins of the family until she discovers and takes utter possession of the knowledge that has been withheld from her and wields it against the monsters of Ivywood Manor. Tani Loo's atmospheric neo-Gothic debut is a gripping Victorian mystery of a biracial woman coming into power through her victories against violence, inherited lies, and colonial legacies.

Victoria G. Smith, named an outstanding writer by the Chicago Filipino Asian American Hall of Fame, explores the Filipino diaspora with magic, lyricism, and humor. Ousted years ago from the Malacañang Palace in Manila, where he healed the people's ailments with the power God sent through his hands, Victor Mariano has made a peaceful, if lonely and uncertain, life for himself as the caregiver "Tita Vee" in a California long-term care facility. Victor is no stranger to living as neither one thing nor another-not a man or a woman, not a fraud or a miracle, not black or white or Filipino. Like the sacred mountain that chose a penniless intersex bastard to receive the gift of healing, Victor lives on the very edge of where any other human could travel. Faced with crisis and deportation, tormented by the loss of his unbelievable gifts, Victor has nothing left but memories and a remarkable story of multiple abandonments, faith and disbelief, palaces and poverty. Hair graying, with no hope even of escape, his own tale might be the only way to save the twisted heart of a cruel racist who threatens the small peace he has forged. Faith Healer is a book of tremendous depth and tenderness, a fearless exploration of how small and ordinary tragedies twist a life into a cruelty of social injustice, loss of faith, yearning for love, and literal exile.