Coming in spring ‘27!
The Southern Oracle and End Times Companion
The year is 2032, and Cassie Loomis is making the worst road trip of all time: she’s taking her daughter’s oldest friend across state lines for an abortion. Her twin, Helenus, spent decades sorting out identity only to find that how a person feels inside doesn’t matter to the US government. And their old frenemy, Helen (the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, and please don’t forget it) has climbed the ladder of power without realizing that her star will fall as soon as her face does.
Read “Pay at the Pump” on The Chamber or Rural Fiction Magazine
Read “12 Items or Less” on The Chamber
Read “Morning Shift in Witness Protection”
on The Raven’s Perch
Read “Cassie” on Wilderness House Literary Review
“Marlene” received an honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest Annual Competition (2022), Literary/mainstream short story
Kay Summers is a fiction writer captivated by life’s fulcrums—the big moments you see coming and the small ones you only recognize in the rearview mirror.
The swerve, the sharp left turn, and the crossing over, but also the passing by, the missed alarm, and the passive acceptance — these are the moments that define a life.
Kay writes novels and short stories, and she is actively seeking representation.
A little background…
I’ve had years of experience telling the stories of people and organizations in voices other than my own, repping everything from Shakespearean theatre to climate change policy. I hosted an international affairs podcast, Big World, for six years. My writing centers introverts, weirdos, invisible GenX women, and those of us screaming into the void.
From “A Mother’s Wish”
To complete a thought
To have one thought string from end to end
Beautiful in my mind
Unbroken
Unbothered
Un-hijacked
Undeterred
Brought home to rest
Concluded
Completed
Would be a beautiful relief.
From “Grumpy Women”
I have been reflecting on the power of grumpy women
Grumpy women think
They feel
But you don’t get to know what
They manage
They deal
They deliver
They don’t smile
Much
But when they do
It’s like the clouds parting
And a beautiful sun shining through
Because
They only smile
When they feel like it
And that makes all the difference
From “Less of Me”
Scales
Space
Shadows
Sizes
Smiles
Simple, easy ways to see
whether there is enough less of me
More is bad
More is too much
In every way, in everything else
More is better, it seems
but not in me
The only measure
of true success
since another person saw fit to assess
has been for me to be definably, absolutely, less
Excerpt from Susie Chandler Went Missing:
It’s possible Lisa’s become too judgmental to be useful anymore, but she’s not sure. The young women who come to see her for these meetings have no idea how many reasons people will find to discount them, to dismiss them, to not hire them. They don’t know that they simply can’t afford the tentativeness, the weak handshake, the questioning tone, and the everlasting apologies. The world will be only too happy to write them off; they must not provide the reasons themselves.
From “Pink Butterflies”
And a lone yellow and black butterfly
Who sits
Kinetic energy at rest
Who is enoughJust as she is
Recent recommended reads:
A Better World, by Sarah Langan
The Sullivanians, by Alexander Stille
Hestia Strikes a Match, by Christine Grillo
The Villa, by Rachel Hawkins
All the Sinners Bleed, by SA Cosby
Bright Young Women, by Jessica Knoll
Black Sheep, by Rachel Harrison
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
The Seventh Veil of Salome, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Bewitching, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume
A Thousand Ships, by Natalie Haynes
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Crown and Sceptre, by Tracy Borman
Stone Blind, by Natalie Haynes
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, by Grady Hendrix
Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler
North Woods, by Daniel Mason
Up with the Sun, by Thomas Mallon
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Challenger, by Adam Higginbotham
The Devil at his Elbow, by Valerie Bauerlein
Murderland, by Caroline Fraser
Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
