Other Emergencies: Stories

The ＂other emergencies＂ experienced by Sarah Freligh’s characters range from mildly disruptive to life-altering. In ＂All That Water,＂ a college dropout struggling with addiction forges an unlikely alliance with a bank teller following a botched robbery. In ＂Aftershocks,＂ a writer grieving the loss of her support dog is haunted by the memory of what she witnessed on 9/11. In ＂Happenstance,＂ two women from different backgrounds form a tenuous connection over the shared experience of their histories. And in ＂Heaven,＂ a detective and a high school girl navigate the fraught terrain in the days following a mass shooting in a small town. Ultimately the stories in Other Emergencies revolve around the resilience of people and the capacity for authentic connection in times of great change.

Sarah Freligh is the author of seven books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Award; Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest; and A Brief Natural History of Women (Harbor Editions, 2023). Her work has appeared numerous literary journals and is anthologized in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2018), and several editions of Best Microfiction. Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.