“Nobody Goes Out Anymore,” a multifarious anthology of post-COVID stories, is available online now. There’s a bit of everything in here: hope, horror, heartbreak, romance, religion, race relations, action pieces, family dramas, thought experiments (constructed by people with very different worldviews), etc. I think I’ve never been in an anthology with quite such a wide range of styles and underlying assumptions.
The first story in the collection is my “Under the Shadow,” which is on the hopeful end–perhaps not in public health terms, but in what I believe about our capacity for goodness in hard times (though it doesn’t altogether skip the pettiness and terror that sometimes mask that). It begins, “When the Sequel virus first appeared in the news, here in Beulahsville our main concern was how it would affect the race for mayor.”
joannamichalhoyt.com 