On Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson's stories show us a world that is both real and full of illusion. One imagines the skies that sit over these towns are always a particularly vibrant shade of blue. The characters are people we almost know, and yet their lives are heightened, peculiar, both more dazzling and more tragic than our own. Kevin doesn't write fantasy at all, and yet he never exactly writes a straight reality either. In this story, "Blowing Up on the Spot," a woman works in a Scrabble tile factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. It sounds like it would wind up being precious, but it isn't. In turning the world not upside down but maybe twenty degrees on its side, he forces us to look at our own lives in a new and slightly off-kilter way. I believe Kevin is a real talent and I am thrilled to endorse him.

—Ann Patchett, author of The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, and Bel Canto.