Grind

"This is prime American fiction—tough, generous, and open–eyed."
—ALYSON HAGY, author of Boleto

"Maynard's debut collection bursts with idiosyncratic characters…packs a strong emotional punch."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Convicts round up wild mustangs, a schizophrenic homeless man wins the jackpot and disappears, a truck driver with a child's mind spends his last hours in the embrace of a prostitute's photos. Disparate and vivid, Mark Maynard's characters intersect in the new wild west of Reno, Nevada.

MARK MAYNARD grew up on the north shore of Lake Tahoe in Incline Village, Nevada, a small town that blessed him with enough quirky characters to populate a lifetime of stories.  Mark earned his MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Antioch University Los Angeles. His short fiction has been selected as runner up in the Our Stories Gordon Fiction Contest and as honorable mention in the Torrey House Press Winter 2011 Fiction Contest. His work has also appeared in Shelf Life Magazine, The Duck and Herring Pocket Field Guide, the Tall Grass Wild Things Anthology, and the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market 2010. Mark is the Fiction Editor for The Meadow literary journal. He lives in Reno, Nevada with his wife and two sons, and can sometimes be found performing stand-up comedy at the ThirdStreet Bar in downtown Reno.