Mistakes by the Lake

Set in Cleveland, Ohio, from its earliest beginnings as a forested frontier to the urban blight of modern times, Mistakes by the Lake is a collection of ten thematically linked stories spanning the many faces of the city's A motorman navigates his 1920's back-and-forth trolley until he snaps; A stockyards knocker encounters the Virgin Mary during the 1954 World Series; A wannabe wrestles his unruly mind along the flammable 1960's Cuyahoga River; In a reinvention of Henry IV, a young man must either stick with his bumbling criminal crew or uncover legit ways to support his mother and transgender Gramps. The collection and its stories have garnered numerous Nilsen Prize (Southeast Missouri State University); The Lake Prize in Fiction (Midwestern Gothic); The Novella Award (Liverpool John Moores University); Munster Literature Centre's Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition; Honorable Family Matters Contest (Glimmer Train). Praise for the novella, Mistakes by the "Full of action, movement, tension and shocks. T he world of the Cleveland stockyards and its denizens is brought to life with verve, skill and command" (Vulpes Libris).