Fiction. Is there hope within even the darkest hearts? A woman has sex with her dead mother's husband. A child sleeps in a makeshift nest. A sister betrays a sister. A woman takes on the persona of a dead prostitute. All are in search of that which eludes them: an acknowledgement of a shared past, the fulfillment of a secret desire, a n tenuous connection made whole. Within I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND an array of tender, stark, authentic, and sometimes very lost souls discover a reason to live through their capacity to see beauty in the everyday and instead of coming to conclusions, they discover a way to begin again. "I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND is a heartfelt collection of deaths: deaths of people, dreams, love, and hope. In this gritty collection, Myfanwy Collins gives voice to characters learning to live on despite such deaths. Characters who often act badly, but who are all the more believable and sympathetic because of their mistakes, failings, and struggles. Myfanwy Collins brings such compassion and tenderness to her stories while never sparing the stark truths. One of her characters tells us, The air was so sparse that our breath whispered back into our mouths to feed us. These stories whispered into me. They fed me."&mdash;Ethel Rohan

I Am Holding Your Hand

Collins, Myfanwy

Literature & Fiction

PANK Books

Echolocation: a Novel

Sometimes the voices that call you home lead you astray... Cheri and Geneva grew up on "a little patch of nothing made up of dairy farms in the valleys and boarded up iron-ore mines in the mountains, a town of old folks waiting to die and young people dying to leave." Now, Cheri has fled that life for the city, leaving Geneva behind to care for their aunt as she succumbs to cancer. Her death draws them together, forcing them to face their past-and each other. When Cheri's mother turns up with a strange baby and a dangerous secret close behind, the choices that follow will push all of them beyond boundaries they never thought they'd cross. In this stunning debut novel, Myfanwy Collins lays bare the hearts of three lost women called together by their own homing instincts in a season that will change their lives-and the place they call home-forever. "Myfanwy Collins tells a deep and resonant story about people she loves, and along the way shows us how to love them as well." -Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller "Myfanwy Collins' debut novel calls to mind the grim and radiant work of Daniel Woodrell. From page one, I was chilled by the landscape, caught up in the trouble, and riveted by these women of northernmost New York who slam back together and figure out how to live with what's missing." -Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers and Other Stories "Fearless, elegant, and accessible, Echolocation is literary fiction at its best. With heartbreakingly beautiful prose, Myfanwy Collins tells a gripping and tender tale of broken souls yearning for wholeness. These are characters who will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It's a dazzling debut!" -Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life "Myfanwy Collins has the goods. It's that simple. Echolocation is about love in all its magnificent slipperiness; it's about how secrets bind us rather than rend us; it's about the endless series of personal reinventions we call a lifetime. And these are things we had all better be thinking-and reading-about, if we plan to try and get out of this alive." -Ron Currie Jr., author of God is Dead and Everything Matters! "A moving and delicate novel, tracing the poignant destinies of women who long for a home they never had." -Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Secret Son "Get ready to fall madly, sadly in love with the fiction of Myfanwy Collins." -Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh

Echolocation: a novel

Literary

Engine Books

Sometimes the voices that call you home lead you astray... Cheri and Geneva grew up on "a little patch of nothing made up of dairy farms in the valleys and boarded up iron-ore mines in the mountains, a town of old folks waiting to die and young people dying to leave." Now, Cheri has fled that life for the city, leaving Geneva behind to care for their aunt as she succumbs to cancer. Her death draws them together, forcing them to face their past-and each other. When Cheri's mother turns up with a strange baby and a dangerous secret close behind, the choices that follow will push all of them beyond boundaries they never thought they'd cross. In this stunning debut novel, Myfanwy Collins lays bare the hearts of three lost women called together by their own homing instincts in a season that will change their lives-and the place they call home-forever. "Myfanwy Collins tells a deep and resonant story about people she loves, and along the way shows us how to love them as well." -Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina andCavedweller "Myfanwy Collins' debut novel calls to mind the grim and radiant work of Daniel Woodrell. From page one, I was chilled by the landscape, caught up in the trouble, and riveted by these women of northernmost New York who slam back together and figure out how to live with what's missing." -Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers and Other Stories "Fearless, elegant, and accessible, Echolocation is literary fiction at its best. With heartbreakingly beautiful prose, Myfanwy Collins tells a gripping and tender tale of broken souls yearning for wholeness. These are characters who will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It's a dazzling debut!" -Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life "Myfanwy Collins has the goods. It's that simple. Echolocation is about love in all its magnificent slipperiness; it's about how secrets bind us rather than rend us; it's about the endless series of personal reinventions we call a lifetime. And these are things we had all better be thinking-and reading-about, if we plan to try and get out of this alive." -Ron Currie Jr., author ofGod is Dead and Everything Matters! "A moving and delicate novel, tracing the poignant destinies of women who long for a home they never had." -Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Secret Son 

The Ampersand, the connective device, the character combining that which was not combined before. The Ampersand, the literary magazine with content ranging from the wild speculations of Matt DeBenedictis to the lively and realistic fiction of Myfanwy Collins, from the gentle simplicity of Julie Yi, to the flinty prose of G.K. Wuori.

The Ampersand

MOON, Sarah

Pobo, Kenneth

Wuori, G. K.

Bradley, J.

Hale, Christine

Seely, Shane

Báez, Diego

Yi, Julie

Short Stories & Anthologies

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Here and now I am in this place far away from my home. Here, with the cold wind blowing down from the north and the stars piercing through the cloudless sky. Here I am.
But my story does not start here.
My story starts months ago and hundreds of miles south of where I am now. My story starts in the place I used to call home. My story starts with violence and heartbreak.
After her brother is involved in a grisly murder-suicide, fifteen-year-old Laney is sent to live with her grandmother in the Adirondack Mountains. Laney gradually warms to her new home—especially her relationship with a mysterious neighbor—but before she can appreciate her new life, she must uncover the secrets that have haunted her family for decades.
Myfanwy Collins was born in Montreal but moved to the Adirondack Mountains in New York when she was still a child. She has since lived all over New England and worked as a waitress, a bartender, a nanny, a chambermaid, a clerk, a high school English teacher, a secretary, a ghost writer, and a traveling worker with Cirque du Soleil. She is the author of a novel, Echolocation, and a collection of short stories, I Am Holding Your Hand.

The Book of Laney

Lacewing Books

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