“We write to create the books that we would like to read, that haven’t yet been written—possibly.”—Joyce Carol Oates
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by Jennifer Frost
Reposted, 31 October 2026
Happy Halloween from the Story Archive🎃
I close all the windows. The wind is picking up & the dust will blow in. In the streaming sunshine, a man walks alone on the dirt road. From the kitchen, Mother calls, “Opal, have you got those windows closed up?”
(more…)by Jennifer Frost
14 August 2026
Coming in August 2026 from Silent Clamor Press, Faces in the Flames by N.T. McQueen gives us a multi-faceted gem in the shape of Stone Lake, CA, the fictional hill town captured in this short story collection. Each of these thirteen stories stands alone, published separately prior to this edition, and combining here into not-quite-a-novel, but a rich picture of semi-rural community life. With each new tale, McQueen shows us another face reflecting Stone Lake’s smoky light in its own peculiar way, the homes built by the contractor whose family is falling apart, the sermons preached by a pastor whose heart is filled with doubt. Each protagonist is destined for a bit part later on, while the local haunts, taverns, and discount stores become as familiar as home, we revisit them so often in these pages. Like McQueen’s varied cast of Stone Lake residents, we’ve lived here all our lives.
(more…)by Jennifer Frost
7 August 2026
Even before the story, the music begins. “Here’s a tune I wrote before any of this,” goes the first sentence of Simple Songs for the End of the World, spoken by Gus as he gives us a line of musical notation, a little melody high up in treble clef, just a few bars. “I hum it when things get uncomfortable,” he says. Throughout Simple Songs for the End of the World, author MC Schmidt embeds Gus’s music into the text, the tunes accompanying a sweetly human story of resilience through adversity. As Gus faces an emasculating battle with cancer, an accident in space simultaneously shuts down all satellite communications, leaving the whole world as bewildered as our newly diagnosed protagonist. What happens next? How do we keep track of each other? How do we hold on?
(more…)by Jennifer Frost
31 July 2026
When depression takes over, time dissolves; I’m me, but I’m going back in time, minute by minute, a little younger, a little younger. I’m no longer at home with my husband and ten-year-old son, but in another house, far away, another bedroom, and I am small. The hands of the clock wind backwards. I’m not reacting to what’s happening now, I’m reliving something old that felt like this. I’m back there as if I never left, alone and scared where no one who loves me can reach, seized by the ghost of an event that replays itself like a residual haunting. I’m trapped in that moment, hyperventilating like a sobbing child, forever young.
(more…)by Jennifer Frost
17 July 2026
In a recent Instagram post, Silent Clamor Press announced the January 2027 release date of my new novella, Cradle and All. The publisher describes the book like this:
(more…)
