Melissa Broder is the author of Milk Fed, the “sensuous and delightfully delirious tale” (O, The Oprah Magazine) of a calorie-obsessed lapsed Jewish woman who falls under the spell of a zaftig Orthodox frozen yogurt store employee. Her other work includes the novel The Pisces, an essay collection titled So Sad Today, and four collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in a multitude of publications, including Tin House and Guernica, and she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. In Death Valley, Broder weaves the tale of a woman who finds refuge from her sorrows through a mystical cactus in the high California desert.

Hilary Leichter’s novel Temporary, longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, tells the tale of a young woman who fills increasingly bizarre temp job positions. It was named one of 2020’s best books by NPR, Vulture, and Elle, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. A creative writing professor at Columbia University, Leichter has earned fellowships from Yaddo, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, n+1, The New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine, among other places. Her latest novel, Terrace Story, tells the story of a family living in a cramped apartment who finds a miraculous and inexplicable terrace in their closet.

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