Third in a series, this anthology of short fiction is written by contemporary writers of color. Edited by Deesha Philyaw, the collection features work by Noah Alvarez, Victoria Ballesteros, Exodus Octavia Butler, C.G. Crawford, Monic Ductan, LaTanya McQueen, Jennifer Morales, Ruby Hansen Murray, Michael Pacheco, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Sarp Sozdinler, Sejal Shah, Dawn Tasaka Steffler, Sara J. Streeter, Lisa Wartenberg Vélez, and Robert Yune.

Editor Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Philyaw is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction (with Dawnie Walton) and Reckon True Stories (with Kiese Laymon). She is currently at work developing TV shows based on her short fiction. Philyaw’s debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is forthcoming from Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in 2026.