There Is Only Us Volume 21

ZOE BALLERING's short fiction has appeared in Craft, Electric Lit, and Hobart, and her story "Double or Nothing" won the 2021 Rougarou Fabulism and Speculative Fiction Contest. Her writing is informed by her experiences working in many different worlds: as program manager for a historic tall ship, receptionist at a garbage dump, olive oil saleswoman, teacher, radio copywriter, and currently as communications coordinator for the Reed College Office of Admission. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

"Wholly original and wildly contemporary, Zoe Ballering's There Is Only Us moves from the COVID-19 pandemic's Before Times to the After Times, every story a meticulous and emotionally resonant examination of a rapidly shifting world. Reading it feels like reading the world as it is unfolding, an Ovidian rendering of the cataclysmic changes of our time, with all the accompanying strangeness, pain, and exultation."--Polly Buckingham, author of The Expense of a View and series judge "In There Is Only Us, strands of the strange and the familiar intertwine and coalesce around everyday heartbreak and existential speculations. The people in these stories confront questions of identity with profound hope by declaring, 'Here I am, ' and in doing so remind us that we are not alone. A breathtaking and auspicious debut."--Christopher Barzak, author of Wonders of the Invisible World "The stories in There Is Only Us make me rethink everything I know about mothers and daughters, astronauts, Noah's Ark, dreams, and--yes--mole rats. With tenderness and honesty, Ballering draws out the most human of traits in the most wild of circumstances."--Kristiana Kahakauwila, author of This Is Paradise: Stories "There Is Only Us creates worlds that dazzle as they fall apart. These are stories that will stick with you for a long time, reminding you that not only are we connected by our losses, but so too are we bound by love."--Kelly Magee, author of The Neighborhood