Ethan Chatagnier - Warnings from the Future

There are many to whom this book owes its thanks. To my editor, Nicola Mason, for bringing the book into being and helping it become what it is. To my mentors, Liza Wieland and Steve Yarbrough, whose guidance from my earliest writing days has helped me be able to always see the way forward. To those who helped me hone and improve these stories: Erin Cook, Carole Firstman, Sally Vogl, Phyllis Brotherton, Jim Schmidt, and especially Elizabeth Schulte Martin. To friends smarter than I am, without whose knowledge and expertise many of these stories would not have been possible: Maryam Attia, Samina Najmi, Bob Allaire, Tim Ellison, Jesse Rorabaugh, and Jessica Sweet.

I am also thankful for the literary magazine editors who first published these stories: David Lynn and Caitlin Horrocks of Kenyon Review ; Carolyn Kuebler of New England Review ; Megan Sexton and Soniah Kamal of Five Points ; Michael Griffith and Nicola Mason, once again, of Cincinnati Review ; Jonathan Freedman and Vicki Lawrence of Michigan Quarterly Review ; Linda Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown of Glimmer Train ; Stephen Corey of Georgia Review ; and Bill Henderson of The Pushcart Prize .

To the Smittcamp family and all the staff and leaders of the Smittcamp Family Honors College, who have created a miracle and sustain it daily.

To my fellow students from English 42H in fall of 2002.

I am deeply thankful to my parents, Tom Chatagnier and Sylvia Chatagnier. Their support has been constant and multifaceted all the years of my life.

I am deeply grateful for my children, Ishmael and Colette. They have the best hearts of anyone I know.

And above all, I am thankful for Laura, whose love makes the world I live in.

Stories from this volume first appeared, some in altered form, in: Cincinnati Review (“The Unplayable Études”), Five Points (“Every Face in the Crowd” as “Every Face Was in the Crowd”), Georgia Review (“Retrograde Mountain Time”), Glimmer Train (“Dentists”), Kenyon Review Online (“The Law of Threes”), Michigan Quarterly Review (“As Long as the Laughter” as “Warnings from the Future”), New England Review and The Pushcart Prize XLII (“Miracle Fruit”).

Ethan Chatagnier has been awarded a Pushcart Prize in fiction and published stories in journals including Glimmer Train, New England Review, Georgia Review, Cincinnati Review, and Five Points. A graduate of Fresno State and Emerson College, he lives in Fresno, California, with his family.

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Copyright © 2018 by Ethan Chatagnier

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First printing

Designed by Barbara Neely Bourgoyne

Cover art: Tight Loop (cropped), painting by Skip Lawrence, reproduced with permission of the artist

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data have been applied for.

ISBN-10 (pbk): 1-946724-03-3 / ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-946724-03-8

ISBN-10 (e-book): 1-946724-08-4 / ISBN-13 (e-book): 978-1-946724-08-3

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