13 Ways to Die

The common denominator in this collection of stories is that somebody dies in each of them. A husband dies under mysterious circumstances, a wife in a house fire, some are devoured by supernatural beings, others by a serial killer, one due to complications from an insect bite, and an army is dispatched by a swarm of snakes. The stories cross multiple genres, explore human connections, as well as different ways of thinking about and coping with death. Most of the stories were conceived while walking my dog through the cemetery in the final months of my husband's illness, reading epitaphs and scanning the headstones for unusual names. The cemetery was on my way home from work and was easy to access. It had the added benefit of having lots of lanes, few people and, normally, no other dogs, which made it an ideal place for me to walk mine. I did not expect when I first started stopping there for it to lead to such creative productivity, but that is what happened, and this collection is one of the results. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.