Lock and Load

Complex depictions of the aloneness of the ´rugged individual' with a destructive weapon at hand.'--Kevin McIlvoy, author of The Complete History of New Mexico: Stories

Our finest writers parse out the nuances of this complicated and divisive issue in a way that only great literature can.'--Sheryl Monks, author of Monsters in Appalachia: Stories?

This is a powerful, challenging, and often exquisite response to our lethally dangerous gun culture. These stories reveal our complicated relationship to weapons, and offer chilling evidence of the way violence affects our contemporary consciousness.'--Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta: A Novel

An unflinching look at a hard subject. America is the land of the armed. The impressive chorus of voices here proves the pen is mightier than the gun.'--Jason Ockert, author of Wasp Box

A brilliant anthology. Every story--sad, sweet, hilarious, thoughtful, or satirical--turns up a gun. Clearly, a loaded gun is inspirational.'--Kelly Cherry, author of Temporium: Before the Beginning to After the End

Lock and Load offers everything we want from our fiction: emotional insight, quality storytelling, distinctive prose. Not to mention it's a real shoot-'em-up of a read!'--David Philip Mullins, author of Greetings from Below

Though we're talking about cowboys, Portuguese gang members, returned veterans, and abandoned women, one more character's always on the page: the gun.'--Cully Perlman, author of The Losses: A Novel

Trigger warning: in these spectacular stories many guns will go off. Chekhov, I'm certain, would approve.'--Daniel Mueller, author of How Animals Mate: Short Stories