To occupy means to be present, to be available emotionally, to stand up for oneself, and sometimes to protest. The opposite is absence. To be rendered silent, useless, vacant because of fear or confusion or despair. Each of the stories presents a challenge, not only to an individual character but to a relationship. This short story collection from award-winning California author Daniel Coshnear includes 12 stories about occupation, featuring ordinary heroes. A thoughtful mood is reinforced with 16 full color images from Oakland artist, and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Squeak Carnwath.

 Years from now a Ph.D. student writing about the culture of the Occupy Movement will surely point to Occupy and Other Love Storiesas an example of the fiction that emerged from the protests against Wall Street immorality and criminality. It’s also fiction that stands on its own merits without ties to Occupy or any social movement.
-Jonah Raskin

 

 

From Early Onset:

I ought to be outlining my American Revolutionary History lecture for tonight’s class at the junior college, but I’ve spent the morning reimagining the closet, what we don’t need, what  we might need, what we can and can’t reach, etc. And without intending it, I find myself doing the same with the file cabinet, the kitchen pantry, the fridge. I’m not making what a sensible person would call progress. I’m exhibiting symptoms of an illness I can’t name, but which is becoming very common. Read More…

 

Daniel Coshnear is the author of a previous collection of stories, Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine Editions), which was awarded the Willa Cather Prize in Fiction. Read More…

Daniel Coshnear writes about a dozen kinds of desperation and a few kinds of peace with mordant wit and the kind of emotional exactitude that clear a reader’s vision the way a sharp new flavor clears and challenges the palate. He is a thrilling discovery.

–Rosellen Brown