First Law of Holes

Meg Pokrass is the author of eight flash fiction collections, two award-winning collections of hybrid prose, and two novellas-in-flash. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, she now lives in Scotland. Her books include Damn Sure Right (Press 53, 2011), The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down (Etruscan Press, 2015), My Very End of the Universe: Five Novellas in Flash and a Study of the Form (Rose Metal Press, 2015), Alligators At Night (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2018), Triple #12 (Ravenna Press, 2019), Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (V. Press, 2020), The Dog Seated Next to Me (Pelekinesis, 2020), The Loss Detector, a novella-in-flash (Bamboo Dart Press, 2021), Spinning to Mars (Blue Light Press, 2021), and co-author of The House of Gran Padano, with Jeff Friedman (Pelekinesis Press, 2022). Forthcoming in 2023 is Disappearing Debutantes (from Outpost 19), co-written with Aimee Parkison.

“Brilliant. Dazzling. The stories in First Law of Holes embody disjunction at its finest and most startling. And always, always deliver each story with a generous serving of heat and heart. It is a Meg Pokrass collection to return to again and again and again.”—Pamela Painter, author of Fabrications: New and Selected Stories“When you begin a collection of flash fiction by someone as synonymous with the genre as Meg Pokrass, you can’t help but go in with the highest of expectations. With First Law of Holes, Pokrass’s new and selected stories, not only does she meet these expectations, but far exceeds them. What a pleasure it is to take this journey through this foundational writer’s career, to see that lineage of ideas and observations, of heartbreaks and celebrations, of images and actions, to watch her evolve into the master she has become.” —Michael Czyzniejewski, author of The Amnesiac in the Maze: Stories“First Law of Holes feels like an entire universe ofcharacters and experiences. Infinite, expanding and dotted with stars.” —Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake “To enter the portals of Pokrassland is to go on a magicaljourney: here there are sex-charged buffalo men and melancholic women who fearsix-foot spiders and fall in love with their therapists. It’s a place wherepeople make bald statements and odd connections, where there are strangeanimals, purple stars and ‘a deep-ruby moon.’ Unpredictable, funny andcharming, the world Meg Pokrass builds is a location readers will enter gladlyand, mesmerised, they will most definitely want to stay.”—Nuala O’Connor, author of Nora and Seaborne “The people in these stories need Meg Pokrass. Their livesare tough but her imagination is the fire-lasso that can save them, save us.Here, strange and normal go hand-in-hand, a marriage that explains nothing butmakes so much clear.”—Bob Hicok, author of Water Look Away