So Many Shapes and Sizes: Stories (Small, Medium, and Large)

Few authors today match John Sheirer’s storytelling versatility as he glides from microfiction to novelette to every size in between. Sheirer’s themes range as widely as his forms. So Many Shapes and Sizes explores how we live in a world that often presents itself in contrasting ways: simultaneously beautiful and troubling, kind and cruel, connected and isolated, funny and tragic, joyful and despondent.

The characters in these stories find themselves at unexpected crossroads—sometimes literally, always figuratively. A woman is torn between confronting or comforting her dying father. A routine instructional note to a housesitter becomes unintentionally personal. Two strangers develop an unexpected bond on a hiking trail. A NASA scientist discusses her work searching for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life during a poolside family cookout. On his final day at work, a retiring teacher deals with a “wildling” kindergarten child while he looks back at his long life and five-decade career.

Through it all, Sheirer’s stories embody the empathy, humor, and depth of our human quest for community and love in troubled times.

“With his signature wit and wisdom, John Sheirer introduces us to another multi-hued assortment of flawed, funny, and fantastic characters—each of whom possesses the uncanny power to remind us of ourselves. The humble, relatable folks in So Many Shapes and Sizes are everymen and women, the sort who might live next door or teach your kids or grandkids. In his stories, Sheirer is always asking, “What makes us human?” The answers he finds never fail to move us and encourage us to look with new eyes at the ways we treat the people in our lives. The collection is highly entertaining, but the true gift here is the life lessons contained in these stories.” – Jon DiSavino, host of the Short Story Today podcast

“Dear reader, beware. This is not a book. You are holding a magic spyglass. Each of its sections, perfectly snugly fitted into the next, will bring you closer to the infinite universe of the human condition. Alongside constellations of love, solitude, humor, and the illogical puzzlement of being alive, like a literary Pascal, John Sheirer shows in this collection that an atom and a galaxy are interchangeable and wondrously reversible.” – Fabiana Elisa Martínez, author of Conquered by Fog and 12 Random Words