"With two writers as well matched artistically as Tara Lynn Masih and James Claffey, a collaboration is cause to celebrate. This richly woven, haunting novelette transcends the confines of its brevity; feels tender, sprawling, immersive. The Bitter Kind is an alchemy, a duet, a gorgeous melding of two of our most treasured literary voices."
-Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018
"With short, alternating passages, James Claffey and Tara Masih vividly illuminate the separate and commingled lives of Stela and Brandy in this original and elegantly textured novella. It is a story, human and soulful, of place, mysticism, and the hard-won ground we all struggle toward."
-Robert Scotellaro, author of Nothing Is Ever One Thing
"From ghost-soaked frontier towns to leafy waterways, frozen river basins, and the open road, Tara Masih's and James Claffey's parallel narratives tumble along through stunning landscapes of loneliness and beauty. The writing is evocative and tender, exploring both the haunted and the haunting; touching in its examination of broken things and masterful in its prose."
-Kimberly Lojewski, author of Worm Fiddling Nocturne in the Key of a Broken Heart
"With beautiful imagery and a seamless voice, Masih and Claffey move us through decades as two parallel lives seek solace and healthy human connection. Stela, long plagued by abusive relationships, and Brandy, spurred by tragedy and unlucky in love, are shaped and steered by the things that haunt them, and, perhaps, the things that will someday guide them to heal. This winning collaborative effort is both stirring and satisfying."
-Mel Bosworth, author of FREIGHT and coauthor of Second Acts in American Lives
"With their binocular lyric lenses, Masih and Claffey provide a lacquered and sanded depth to this compilation set in the chambered karst of our heartfelt heartland. The book is a layered lanyard, a laurel wreath, an ouroboros, Mobius's Mobius, an effortless enso, and a terrific torqueing torus. The diastolic/systolic dub-Dub, a syncopated sink or swim, of the call and response had me reeling, a time step timed to hit the one and the three. What I am saying is that this is a tour de force, a fait accompli."
-Michael Martone, author of Brooding and The Moon Over Wapakoneta
