fwriction

For fwriction’s one-hundreth post, I give you today’s Story of the Day, from possibly the most gifted new writer I’ve come across in years: Laura van den Berg. Her debut collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, will inspire you, as it did me, to amp up your writing, attempt to reach the bar van den Berg has set. This story, originally published in the Boston Review, stays with me:

“The truth was, I’d always had recklessness in me. The truth was, things were already getting worse. But, in later years, I would not be able to resist re-writing that day in memory; I needed the altered version, I came to realize, in order to keep hoping for something better.”

(100^th Post Bonus: van den Berg has another story, “Transit,” published by Hobart, that I find quite lovely.)