This February 2021, the University of Notre Dame Press will publish A Common Person and Other Stories by R. M. Kinder. For a limited time, we are giving away three advance copies! Enter to win by filling out the form at the bottom of this post. This offer expires December 4th and is open to US residents.
Can’t wait to start reading? Reviewers, bookstore employees, librarians, and other members of the book industry can request an e-galley through Edelweiss here. We encourage you to leave a review if you enjoyed the book.
“Rose Marie Kinder’s beautiful new collection, A Common Person and Other Stories, is a constant, thrilling reminder of the magic and power that resides in the people—and the animals—that surround us every day.”
—Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant
The stories in A Common Person and Other Stories, R. M. Kinder’s third short-story collection and the winner of the Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction, expose the disruption in our modern life, the ever-present threat of violence, and, most importantly, the real heroism of everyday people. The characters in these stories, most set America’s heartland, seem to invite trouble through their concern for others: a neighbor’s mistreated dog, a boy standing up to a bully, a woman who faces cancer and the loss of love. Kinder’s characters struggle with conflicts common to us all—to treat others with compassion, to open minds and hearts to diversity, while balancing the welfare of the individual and the larger community. These stories, by turns humorous, unsettling, and utterly believable, expose the dangers of ordinary life as their characters perform acts of defiance, determination, and connection.
R. M. Kinder is the author of three prizewinning collections of short fiction, including A Near-Perfect Gift, winner of the University of Michigan Press Literary Fiction Award, and Sweet Angel Band and Other Stories, winner of Helicon Nine Editions’s Willa Cather Fiction Prize. She has also published two novels, An Absolute Gentleman and The Universe Playing Strings. Her prose has appeared in Passages North, Other Voices, North American Review, and the New York Times.
“Like all fine story writers—from Mansfield to Munro—R. M. Kinder knows, from the writer’s perspective, there is no such thing as an unremarkable life.”
—Catherine Browder, author of Now We Can All Go Home