Anya Groner
Anya Groner received her MFA in fiction from the University of Mississippi, where she was a John and Renee Grisham fellow. She now teaches writing at Loyola University in New Orleans. To read more of her writing go to anyagroner.com.
From the ages of nine to eleven, I worked as a spy. No one paid me, nor did I report my findings to any higher-ups. I discussed my cases with my partner, who went by code name Mountain Chicken Mother of the Buddha.
In memory of T-Model Ford.
Though they started slow and sparse, Ford’s songs revved up quickly, clattering along like a procession of old Cadillacs, their motors jimmied together with wire hangers, the rhythms more beautiful for their brokenness.
The Philosophy of the Magical Octagon: "The details of each fight—especially the author’s own dispute with her academic advisors over her 'ongoing study of the phenomenological basis of ecstasy'—can get tedious, but Howley’s writing always stays sharp. She’s wry, observant, smart, and strangely revealing. Her devotion to MMA is practically religious, and she exuberantly shares her new faith with the reader. 'My theory about octagons is this,' Howley writes. 'There is really only one octagon.'"
