Souvenirs from Another Life, the first full-length collection of short fiction by Leah Browning, features an abundant selection of stories. Relationships are at the forefront: those between friends, siblings, partners, or parents and children, as well as the more tangential relationships between neighbors or coworkers. By turns sharp and tender, the stories delve into the reality and surreality of love, companionship, and family. In "Caught," a man finds his Tinder date surrounded by vaguely threatening birds. Toward the beginning of "The Surrogate Wife," a woman returns after a long journey to discover that her husband's new housekeeper has taken over her home. And in "The Costume Wedding," a doctor and her boyfriend travel to Albuquerque to attend a front yard ceremony where they've been instructed to dress up. Slippery and hypnotic, these short stories illuminate hidden corners of courtship, marriage, divorce, friendship, and familial devotion. Souvenirs from Another Life includes full-length literary fiction, flash, microfiction, and linked stories about the pleasures and absurdities of everyday life. Leah Browning is the author of Two Good Ears and Loud Snow, a pair of flash fiction mini-books published by Silent Station Press, and When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain, a collection of poetry published by Kelsay Books. She is also the author of three short nonfiction books published by Capstone Press and six chapbooks of poetry and fiction. Browning's work has previously appeared in Four Way Review, Harpur Palate, Valparaiso Fiction Review, The Threepenny Review, Necessary Fiction, Waxwing, Flock, Contrary Magazine, Passages North, Watershed Review, Parhelion Literary Magazine, Newfound, The Forge Literary Magazine, Superstition Review, Santa Ana River Review, The Homestead Review, Thin Air Magazine, Belle Ombre, The Petigru Review, South 85 Journal, Terrain.org, Belletrist Magazine, The Ilanot Review, The Westchester Review, The Big Windows Review, The Broadkill Review, Funicular Magazine, Wigleaf, Ponder Review, Mojave River Review, The Stillwater Review, and elsewhere. Her fiction and poetry have appeared on materials from Broadsided Press and Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, with audio and video recordings in The Poetry Storehouse, and in anthologies including The Doll Collection from Terrapin Books and Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence from White Pine Press. Her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize anthology, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and the storySouth Million Writers Award. In addition to writing, Browning has served as editor of the Apple Valley Review, an online literary journal, since 2005. She is originally from New Mexico.
