With twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino “blurs the line between writer and magician" (The New York Times Book Review ) in Exit Zero, which was named a Must-Read by The New York Times Book Review, Bustle, Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Review of Books, Our Culture, Literary Hub.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of Beautyland, Parakeet, 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas, and the story collection Safe as Houses. She was the 2017 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow in Cork, Ireland. She has received the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the Mississippi Review Prize, and fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, and New York City’s Center for Fiction, and her work has twice been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and Mississippi Review 30. She is the Ritvo-Slifka Writer-in-Residence at Yale University.

Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper's Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York.

A deeply personal and propulsive romance laced with humor, heat, and high-octane yearning, Erika Veurink's Exit Lane is "the best of When Harry Met Sally, Normal People, and Lady Bird all wrapped up in a vintage button-down and sprinkled with Midwestern charm" (Joanna Goddard, Cup of Jo).

ABOUT THE WRITERS

Erika Veurink is a writer, founder of EV Salon, and brand consultant who lives in Brooklyn by way of Iowa. She has an MFA from Bennington College and is a contributor to Vogue, New York Magazine, WSJ, and GQ. She writes the fashion newsletter, Long Live. Exit Lane is her debut novella.

Christene Barberich spent 15 years as co-founder and Editor in Chief of Refinery29. In 2022, Christene launched A Tiny Apt., a Substack best-seller, ranked in the Top 10 of Substack's Design category.

A "mythical novel of obsession, moral reckoning, and aspiration [that] glows with fairy tale magic” (Boston Globe), Bear "ends with a bang, and with the intriguing notion that sisterhood (or sisters?) may be as unknowable and unpredictable as anything else in nature” (TheNew York Times Book Review).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Julia Phillips is the author of the bestselling novels Bear and Disappearing Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year. A 2024 Guggenheim fellow, she lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Laura van den Berg is the author of six works of fiction, most recently the novel State of Paradise. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard Fiction Prize, a PEN/O. Henry Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Laura teaches fiction at Harvard University.