Man with Eight Pairs of Legs

Leslie Kirk Campbell's short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares Solos and won awards at Arts & Letters, Southern Indiana Review, Briar Cliff Review and The Thomas Wolfe Review. The author of Journey into Motherhood (Riverhead), Leslie is the mother of two grown sons and teaches at Ripe Fruit Writing, a creative writing program she founded in San Francisco.

2022 Honorable Mention for the Foreword INDIES in Short Stories2022 WNBA Great Group Reads SelectionBuzzfeed, "16 Upcoming Books From Indie Presses You’ll Love"The American Book Fest "Best Book" Award Finalist for Fiction: Short Story"[An] engaging debut...marked by surprising encounters and poignant reflections."—Publishers Weekly"In these eight stories, Campbell spins tales of isolation that range from the desperate to the profound, and her clear prose cuts through the trepidation her characters often feel. A meaningful and utterly devastating collection that cements Campbell as a leading short story writer."—"16 Upcoming Books From Indie Presses You’ll Love," Buzzfeed"[A] remarkable collection—every story a deep dive well worth taking."—San Francisco Chronicle, online and print"You’ll remember its vivid imagery and smart turns of phrase."—Stanford Magazine"These stories, ambitious in scope, at once gritty and lavishly told, set a clear-eyed beam on their characters, and in prose as careful as it is exact, Campbell taps that fierce instinct to regenerate, and show us how ash sparks life."—LitStack, online“History and memory crosscut through The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs in a gorgeous weave. These are marvelous, stirring stories, sometimes sexy, sometimes harrowing, somehow both timeless and timely. Campbell writes with great depth, patience, wisdom, and beauty.”—Anthony Doerr, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for All the Light We Cannot See"The Man With Eight Pairs of Legs, Leslie Kirk Campbell’s prize-winning debut collection of eight stories, is distinguished by the range and diversity of the stories. The seemingly effortless invention of compelling characters entangled in unpredictable situations lends this book a vibrancy and vitality that’s at once sophisticated and utterly natural. And though this is a collection of individual stories, there’s an underlining drive of an intense single voice that gives this book a memorable force."—Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of Paper Lantern: Love Stories“Leslie Kirk Campbell’s stories feature protagonists whose wisdom and wit and tenderness and patience and openness to existence cannot save them from trauma or anxiety or longing or the manic duplicities of love. These stories are masterful on the impossibility of negotiating implacably contradicting desires, and on the indivisibility of the personal and the political. The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs is a superbly accomplished and assured debut.”—Jim Shepard, author of The World to Come and Phase Six"Leslie Kirk Campbell's stories immerse you into a complete and layered world where her characters are suspended between self-destruction and rebirth. Hypnotic, strange, and lovely."—Michelle Wildgen, author of Bread and Butter and You’re Not You