SINKHOLE AND OTHER INEXPLICABLE VOIDS
Short Story Collection
Forthcoming from Viking January 28, 2025
Now Available for Pre-order!!
Cover art by Colin Webber!
I'M FINE BUT YOU APPEAR TO BE SINKING
Short Story Collection
Featherproof Books 2016
Buy from Featherproof Books
Buy from Auntie's Bookstore
Buy from Wishing Tree Bookstore
I'M FINE BUT YOU APPEAR TO BE SINKING
Short Story Collection
Featherproof Books 2016
Buy from Featherproof Books
Buy from Auntie's Bookstore
Buy from Wishing Tree Bookstore
Cover art by Zach Dodson!
Praise for these books from very nice people:
“Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is beguiling and beautiful, funny and poignant, and mesmerizing at every turn. . . . Leyna Krow is the perfect storyteller for this moment, for she so deftly captures the brutality and absurdity of living in what often feels like the end of the world.” -Edan Lepucki, NYT bestselling author of California
“A gorgeous book that also serves as a series of unanswerable, probing questions: how did we get here? how will we move forward? can we still love, despite the wreckage? . . . Very rarely have I come across a set of stories so genuinely moving.” -Kristen Arnett, NYT bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
“From the outset, [Fire Season] presses against our understandings of the world [Krow] is rendering [and] our impulses to categorize it. Is this some species of historical realism or pure fabulism? She constructs the past to leave ample space for doubt. Fiction is, of course, uniquely positioned to reorient a masculine history committed to sidelining the lives of women, and this is precisely the subversive magic Krow is up to here. . . . Krow’s novel offers a welcome feminist reorientation of the regional literature. . . . Krow manages to write a novel that is both apocalyptic and optimistic.”
—Jonathan Frey, The Millions
“Devilishly funny and endlessly inventive, Fire Season is a remarkable debut novel, a wry alternate history of Northwest schemers, dreamers, and scorched earth. Leyna Krow is a wildly talented young writer.”
—Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author Beautiful Ruins
“In this enthralling debut, Leyna Krow brings us the story of three misfits, united by fire, each living out a dream (or nightmare) of the American West. It’s an arresting take on magic, science, disaster, and salvation that’s eerily resonant with the fire seasons we find ourselves living through today.”
—Anna North, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Outlawed
“Leyna Krow is a master of literary sleight of hand. Fire Season will convince you it’s a satire of the early American West, while subtly inching into different territory. It’s a completely new kind of story: a genre-bender that teases out strange, wry, beautiful surprises from familiar tropes. Imagine Jane Campion taking over a Coen Brothers film for the denouement. As in her short stories, Leyna Krow is the usher sneaking you in the side door of a future cult classic.”
—Alexis M. Smith, author of Marrow Island
“Fire Season is fantastic. Here’s an old Northwest so full of con men and creeps, the best thing for it is to burn it all down. Here’s a heroine only Leyna Krow could imagine—a woman whose transformation over the course of this story will also transform what we think a novel of the West can be. A powerful, absorbing, and incredibly funny book.”
—Kate Lebo, author of The Book of Difficult Fruit
“Fire Season sparks to life on the power of Leyna Krow’s masterful subversion of criminality. While at first this novel’s inferno seems confined to one minor western outpost, by the final pages, it’s throwing light on the unreliable narrators who perpetuate misogyny across America. Riveting, resonant, and charmingly rebellious, Fire Season will leave you wanting to read anything by Leyna Krow.”
—John Larison, author of Whiskey When We’re Dry
"Leyna Krow’s luminously glum debut comes front-loaded with an “Index of Things to Come” in which, appropriately enough, Visions of the future has eight entries. (Astronauts, Boats, and Breakfast foods have seven.) There’s one entry for Fish-out-of-water (literally), whereas Fish-out-of-water (metaphorically) occurs “throughout.” This is a faithful first glimpse of Krow’s talent for evoking a grand celestial malaise while playing it out through deeply human means: her characters, like her stories, are clever and self-aware in their lonesomeness, never quite prone to the lyricism their lots in life might warrant. The sum total is breathtaking, but in a slow way, as though the oxygen weighs just a little too much on this planet which both is and isn’t our own."
– The Believer
“Leyna Krow’s stories range far and wide – from outer space to the ocean depths to the distant future – but they are bound by a crackling wit, an inventive vitality, a laser eye for the silent currents between people, and a sneaky emotional power. I’m Fine But You Appear to be Sinking is a wildly imagined debut, a blast of fleet power.”
— Shawn Vestal, author of Daredevils and Godforsaken Idaho
“In Leyna Krow’s I’m Fine, but You Appear to Be Sinking, the natural world serves as a breathing, shifting backdrop for wonderfully strange stories about human connection and division. People float unmoored in outer space or at sea, neighbors crate tigers in their backyards, snakes overtake a diseased prairie, and creatures large and small tunnel into and out of the lives of characters as complex as they are fragile. Brimming with stunning humor, depth, originality, and beauty, this collection is an absolute marvel.”
— Sharma Shields, author of The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac and The Cassandra
“Leyna Krow’s stories crackle with fearless curiosity and an expansive, embracing wonder towards time and the world. I’m Fine but You Appear to Be Sinking is an antidote to every cynical, self-centered impulse.”
— James Tadd Adcox, author of Does Not Love
“What a wonderful book Leyna Krow has written! And what a rare book—innovative, clever, funny, deliciously language-driven, delightful dialogue—but also so very warm and human. A joy to read.”
— Amber Sparks, author of The Unfinished World
“Wise slackers, loveable smart alecks, squids, voyeurs, cob snakes, astronauts and amateur astronomers, octopi, clones, tigers, rebels and octopi. Did I mention the octopi? Welcome to the spectacular, funny, vivid world of Leyna Krow’s short stories! So completely original in voice and concept—smart, humorous, poignant, clear and meaningful. A fresh, important voice for a new generation of writers. I LOVE these stories.”
— Greg Spatz, author of Half as Happy
“Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids is beguiling and beautiful, funny and poignant, and mesmerizing at every turn. . . . Leyna Krow is the perfect storyteller for this moment, for she so deftly captures the brutality and absurdity of living in what often feels like the end of the world.” -Edan Lepucki, NYT bestselling author of California
“A gorgeous book that also serves as a series of unanswerable, probing questions: how did we get here? how will we move forward? can we still love, despite the wreckage? . . . Very rarely have I come across a set of stories so genuinely moving.” -Kristen Arnett, NYT bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things
“From the outset, [Fire Season] presses against our understandings of the world [Krow] is rendering [and] our impulses to categorize it. Is this some species of historical realism or pure fabulism? She constructs the past to leave ample space for doubt. Fiction is, of course, uniquely positioned to reorient a masculine history committed to sidelining the lives of women, and this is precisely the subversive magic Krow is up to here. . . . Krow’s novel offers a welcome feminist reorientation of the regional literature. . . . Krow manages to write a novel that is both apocalyptic and optimistic.”
—Jonathan Frey, The Millions
“Devilishly funny and endlessly inventive, Fire Season is a remarkable debut novel, a wry alternate history of Northwest schemers, dreamers, and scorched earth. Leyna Krow is a wildly talented young writer.”
—Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author Beautiful Ruins
“In this enthralling debut, Leyna Krow brings us the story of three misfits, united by fire, each living out a dream (or nightmare) of the American West. It’s an arresting take on magic, science, disaster, and salvation that’s eerily resonant with the fire seasons we find ourselves living through today.”
—Anna North, author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Outlawed
“Leyna Krow is a master of literary sleight of hand. Fire Season will convince you it’s a satire of the early American West, while subtly inching into different territory. It’s a completely new kind of story: a genre-bender that teases out strange, wry, beautiful surprises from familiar tropes. Imagine Jane Campion taking over a Coen Brothers film for the denouement. As in her short stories, Leyna Krow is the usher sneaking you in the side door of a future cult classic.”
—Alexis M. Smith, author of Marrow Island
“Fire Season is fantastic. Here’s an old Northwest so full of con men and creeps, the best thing for it is to burn it all down. Here’s a heroine only Leyna Krow could imagine—a woman whose transformation over the course of this story will also transform what we think a novel of the West can be. A powerful, absorbing, and incredibly funny book.”
—Kate Lebo, author of The Book of Difficult Fruit
“Fire Season sparks to life on the power of Leyna Krow’s masterful subversion of criminality. While at first this novel’s inferno seems confined to one minor western outpost, by the final pages, it’s throwing light on the unreliable narrators who perpetuate misogyny across America. Riveting, resonant, and charmingly rebellious, Fire Season will leave you wanting to read anything by Leyna Krow.”
—John Larison, author of Whiskey When We’re Dry
"Leyna Krow’s luminously glum debut comes front-loaded with an “Index of Things to Come” in which, appropriately enough, Visions of the future has eight entries. (Astronauts, Boats, and Breakfast foods have seven.) There’s one entry for Fish-out-of-water (literally), whereas Fish-out-of-water (metaphorically) occurs “throughout.” This is a faithful first glimpse of Krow’s talent for evoking a grand celestial malaise while playing it out through deeply human means: her characters, like her stories, are clever and self-aware in their lonesomeness, never quite prone to the lyricism their lots in life might warrant. The sum total is breathtaking, but in a slow way, as though the oxygen weighs just a little too much on this planet which both is and isn’t our own."
– The Believer
“Leyna Krow’s stories range far and wide – from outer space to the ocean depths to the distant future – but they are bound by a crackling wit, an inventive vitality, a laser eye for the silent currents between people, and a sneaky emotional power. I’m Fine But You Appear to be Sinking is a wildly imagined debut, a blast of fleet power.”
— Shawn Vestal, author of Daredevils and Godforsaken Idaho
“In Leyna Krow’s I’m Fine, but You Appear to Be Sinking, the natural world serves as a breathing, shifting backdrop for wonderfully strange stories about human connection and division. People float unmoored in outer space or at sea, neighbors crate tigers in their backyards, snakes overtake a diseased prairie, and creatures large and small tunnel into and out of the lives of characters as complex as they are fragile. Brimming with stunning humor, depth, originality, and beauty, this collection is an absolute marvel.”
— Sharma Shields, author of The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac and The Cassandra
“Leyna Krow’s stories crackle with fearless curiosity and an expansive, embracing wonder towards time and the world. I’m Fine but You Appear to Be Sinking is an antidote to every cynical, self-centered impulse.”
— James Tadd Adcox, author of Does Not Love
“What a wonderful book Leyna Krow has written! And what a rare book—innovative, clever, funny, deliciously language-driven, delightful dialogue—but also so very warm and human. A joy to read.”
— Amber Sparks, author of The Unfinished World
“Wise slackers, loveable smart alecks, squids, voyeurs, cob snakes, astronauts and amateur astronomers, octopi, clones, tigers, rebels and octopi. Did I mention the octopi? Welcome to the spectacular, funny, vivid world of Leyna Krow’s short stories! So completely original in voice and concept—smart, humorous, poignant, clear and meaningful. A fresh, important voice for a new generation of writers. I LOVE these stories.”
— Greg Spatz, author of Half as Happy