Blog / Working Titles Excerpts

Night Hands (Working Title 4.1)

July 11, 2019 - By Jen Cross

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: NIGHT HANDS a story by Jen Cross, with an introduction by Elizabeth Harries- available this week!

"As the first rays of sun pierced the night in the surrounding wood, Old Mother Ganz raised the double-headed axe. “Now, my daughter,” said the old witch, “we will give these hands back to the night.” Silence for the pause of a breath, the span of a century, a fragmentary turn of the earth. A shard of sun spliced the top lip of the axe. Gnarled hands tightened about the handle and let the blade fall.

The hands in their pretty boxes, that sweet reckoning of pale yellow skin against velvet against the dark exterior. They stay youthful. They stay...

The Tombs of Guy Debord (Working Title 3.3)

January 29, 2019 - By Jean-Marie Apostolidès, translated by Laure Katsaros and René Kooiker

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: THE TOMBS OF GUY DEBORD by Jean-Marie Apostolidès, translated by Laure Katsaros and René Kooiker—available this week!

“Montaigne had his quotations; I have mine,” Guy Debord claimed in his autobiography, ...

On the Quay at Smyrna (Working Title 3.2)

August 8, 2018 - By Margot Demopoulos

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: ON THE QUAY AT SMYRNA by Margot Demopoulos—available this week!

From ON THE QUAY AT SMYRNA:

“Look for color in the shadows!” Madame La Fleur fanned herself with a workbook on natural light. “...

Table for One (Working Title 3.1)

January 24, 2018 - By Yun Ko Eun, translated by Lizzie Buehler

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: TABLE FOR ONE by Yun Ko Eun, translated by Lizzie Buehler—available this week!

From TABLE FOR ONE:

THE CUSTOMER COMES in alone. The owner is a bit slow-witted...

The Keepers of the Ghost Bird (Working Title 2.4)

October 11, 2017 - By Jenn Dean

The Massachusetts Review presents the latest Working Titles e-book: THE KEEPERS OF THE GHOST BIRD by Jenn Dean—available this week!

From THE KEEPERS OF THE GHOST BIRD:

From the air, Bermuda resembles a jeweled and pregnant seahorse, hanging by its tail from the Sargasso Sea. Its top and bottom wrap around two ancient volcanic calderas, one at Castle Harbor and one at Dockyards. In between, Bermuda’s twenty-one square miles twine along a fragile, curving spine of limestone. From a taxi van, the coastline uncurls past the windows: the rose sand, the bitter green foliage of tamarisk trees, stunted windblown evergreens, and the blue southern tip of the Sea.

Beneath the water,...