“The stories in Mary Kuryla’s Freak Weather are by turns disturbing and astonishing, blending the desire for a better life with the quicksand of situational reality. In each tender rendering, a female protagonist navigates her surroundings by protecting herself from the peril she’s trying to escape, often with an animal standing in as an ersatz totem for the issue. These tales twist until they become something undeniable, and Kuryla’s commitment to letting her characters make mistakes without pausing to consider their actions is something rarely seen in fiction. Despite the rush of end-of-semester grading, we were able to speak by phone about her characters’ attempts to understand their sexuality, themselves, and the people around them—and how they use pets as an emotional buffer.”

“Otherwise Panic” by Mary Kuryla appears in Fall 2017 Issue of Shenandoah.

Read the story

“Lottie in Fur” by Mary Kuryla appears in the Fall 2017 Issue of Denver Quarterly.

“Freaky weather—or the kind of weather that brings out freaks? Either interpretation makes sense for this imaginative, unpredictable debut short story collection.” — PEOPLE, November 6, 2017

Mary Kuryla reads from her collection Freak Weather Stories, with Brenda Wehle, at Skylight Books in Los Angeles on November 11, 2017.

Brenda Wehle performs stories from MARY KURYLA’S prize-winning collection Freak Weather. Saturday, November 11 @ 5pm. Skylight Books. 1818 N. Vermont Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90027

Mary Kuryla is the winner of this year’s AWP Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction for her collection, Freak Weather Stories.

In her comments, judge Amy Hempel writes,

There is a feral quality to some of these stories, an attitude that is truly startling. The language is perfectly matched to the not-so-conflicted women living off venison, weed, and their husband’s paychecks. The territory here is sometimes disturbing; the treatment of these people who are in over their heads is always both tough and surprisingly moving. The “action” resides as much in the brisk, fresh language as in what these people conjure in a crisis. Ultimately, the author delivers stories unlike anyone else’s.

See the announcement here.