Dear Miss Metropolitan

A finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction A finalist for the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel Introducing an extraordinary and original writer whose first novel explores the intersections of grief and rage, personal strength and healing--and what we owe one another. Fern seeks refuge from her mother’s pill-popping and boyfriends via Soul Train; Gwin finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation’s dismay and Jesenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matters to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens. On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance. Among them is lifetime resident Miss Metropolitan, advice columnist for the local weekly, but how could anyone who fancies herself a “newspaperwoman” have missed a horror story unfolding right across the street? And why is it that only two of the three girls—now women—were found? The mystery haunts the two remaining “victim girls” who are subjected to the further trauma of becoming symbols as they continuously adapt to their present and their unrelenting past. Like Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys, Ferrell’s Dear Miss Metropolitan gives voice to characters surviving unimaginable tragedy. The story is inventively revealed before, during, and after the ordeal in this singular and urgent novel.

Letters between Caroline Ransom Williams, the first American university-trained female Egyptologist, and James Henry Breasted, the first American Egyptologist and founder of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, show that Ransom Williams had a full life and productive career as the first American female Egyptologist.

"I didn't know I was being manipulated. I didn't know the signs." "I didn't know the cycle of abuse, or that it's normal to feel guilt for something that's not your fault, to have complex emotions about your abuser as you heal. I learned that I could set boundaries, choose not to reconcile, and still pursue the internal freedom of forgiveness." - Tricia Lott Williford A seasoned author and masterful storyteller, Tricia Lott Williford encountered the public trauma of the death of her husband, but she held quietly the private trauma that happened at the same time: grooming, manipulation, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse by a person of trust. Tricia and her therapist, Jana Richardson, LPC, have written a resource to help others recognize the veiled dynamics of abuse, where it starts, how it escalates, and how survivors can break free and find freedom. Peer-reviewed by mental health therapists, You Are Safe Now offers a survivor's firsthand story of abuse in the church including an explanation of the nature of abusers and their common tactics; compassionate, nuanced discussion of trauma responses; research, examples, and statistics to identify abusive dynamics, predation, grooming, and psychological manipulation; and practical tools and resources to facilitate recovery. For survivors of abuse, counselors, therapists, pastors who treat survivors, and those who support survivors in their healing, You Are Safe Now is an indispensable resource.

New York Times best-selling author Curtis Sittenfeld selects the twenty best short stories of the year.