Exposure

Fiction. Women's Studies. From the Dust Bowl to The Magic Kingdom, the Rust Belt to the casinos of Atlantic City, EXPOSURE captures the slow-burn dramas of regret and desire that smolder across America. A grieving photographer blurs time with long exposures and darkroom fumes, inhaled hard. An abused young man searches the woods for abandoned children raised by wolves. A recovering addict takes his grown daughters on a Disney vacation, two decades too late. Collecting layered long stories and lyrical flash fictions, EXPOSURE presents a poignant and formally surprising look at longing, family bonds, and the ever-human effort to reconcile our pasts with our hopes for the future. Evocative and wryly funny, EXPOSURE marks the debut of a gifted and sensitive writer.

"Resch George's writing aptly understands and demonstrates the basic premise of all great storytelling: the crucial connection between character and action that gives meaning to both. Readers of these stories will become absorbed in the pages because they will be immediately drawn into caring for the memorable characters that come alive within, and the circumstances and actions that affect their lives. The stories in EXPOSURE simmer without succumbing to sensationalistic plots or preposterous predicaments—and the writing is so effective that you never really appreciate it... until the last sentence is read."—Thom Didato

"The stories in EXPOSURE sear like light trails, glimmering and striking their lyrical, luminous pitch. Resch George's characters are searchers, feeling through the darkness of their suburban lives to the edges that shape a deeper truth by which to reckon their experiences and their desires—always conscious of the pulse beneath the surface. They are on the cusp, their lives on the verge of breaking or blooming or both. With the sensibility of a poet, Resch George has built stories that spark and sing."—Allison Titus

"This is a stirring, exquisite, heartbreaking yet hopeful book. Resch George's pitch-perfect stories brim over with life—longing, love, sorrow, and the great question of which parts of ourselves we should illuminate and narrate. Whether describing joy or pain, the writing feels both effortless and exquisite, the work of a true master of the form. The book deserves a place on your shelf of favorites, where you'll reach for it again and again."—Susann Cokal

Katy Resch George holds an MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College and an MFA in fiction from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her writing appears in Blackbird, West Branch, Pank, Painted Bride Quarterly, Smokelong Quarterly and other journals. Her stories have been recognized by the annual Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions list and by the storySouth Million Writer's Awards. In support of her fiction writing, Katy has won artist grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and Richmond Culture Works. Katy has taught for the English Departments of Brooklyn College and VCU, and as a faculty lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband visual artist Josh George and their daughter.