With Animal

co-written with Kelly Magee, Black Lawrence Press, May 2015

PRAISE

“Enter into the unexpected-human progeny not as Homo sapiens but as a dragon, a school of fish, a foal, a clutch of rattlesnakes, a spider. The mothers wrestle with the surprise births of furred, finned and winged offspring, and then worry: how will my baby fit in at school? what happens when she literally leaves the nest? Part parenting manual, part cautionary tale, Guess and Magee provide a smorgasbord of genetic tales and travails. Each piece takes you into startling worlds of brilliant imaginations set loose.”

-Sara Greenslit, DVM, author of As If a Bird Flew By Me

Wondrous and wonderful; a virtual feast of imagination, humor, and heart. The rare example of a short story collection that grows and builds upon itself til it becomes a ladder to something somewhere else.”

-Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day

In allusive and poetic prose, Carol Guess and Kelly Magee take their readers into a world where human parents give birth to animal babies. Yet the underlying concern of With Animal is wholly human: how do we come to love, and how do we know when to hold on to it or let it go? These crystalline narratives explore ideas of instinct, caregiving, desire, and need, boldly facing the darkest secrets of parenthood as well as the greatest joys-and unearthing the complex moment when the two meet.”

-Kristiana Kahakauwila, author of This is Paradise