Stephanie Johnson's One of These Things is Not Like the Others is the second full-length release from Keyhole Press, and the first short story collection they've released. I read an advance copy of the manuscript a month or so ago, and was particularly struck by the way Johnson is able to compress so much into both traditional length short stories and her smaller short-shorts. I knew going into the collection that Johnson's flashes are among the best around--I had the priviledge of publishing one while I was a web editor at Hobart--but I hadn't read much of her longer work, and was glad to see that she's just as capable and accomplished at that length.

At the book's website, you can read several of the stories from the collection, including the brilliant title story, which was was originally published at Wigleaf, and begins like this:

The science teacher sweats. Big dots like Holstein spots darken his shirt as he chases you and the other kids around the playground. You run screaming like he's a monster, like he's the devil after your soul, like he's a hungry giant who'll catch you and take a bite out of your thigh because you've got delicious drumsticks. But, really, he's just a man. A fat, divorced, father-of-three that the district hired to teach you about electricity and magnetism, physical and chemical changes. Just a man whose wife left and whose kids get triple portions from the lunch ladies, triple portions that the daughter refuses to eat. The lunch ladies say the daughter is saddest because she misses a mother the most.

I really want to quote the whole story here, just because I love it so much, but please, read it at Wigleaf, then pre-order a copy of One of These Things is Not Like the Others, which will be out in less than two weeks. Stephanie Johnson is a great writer, and I'm consistently impressed by how her quiet, unassuming characters manage to sneak past my defenses to blow me away, story after story. I'm sure they'll do the same thing to you, but if you need further convincing, here's what Scott Garson, Wigleaf's editor and author of the forthcoming American Gymnopédies, had to say about the collection:

There is, in Stephanie Johnson’s stories, a profound, unflashy magic of seeing. She puts you right up to the beating hearts of her people—from which vantage, you see how they miss one another, and you understand as odd, perfect miracles their moments of connection and knowledge.

If you're like me, you often buy books from Amazon just because the free shipping saves you a few bucks. Luckily, Keyhole's one of the few small presses that pays shipping themselves, in the hopes that you'll buy directly from them (which is better for the press, by a large margin.) So head over to Keyhole's site and get out your PayPal password. You won't be disappointed.