ABOUT SHAPESHIFTING

“A wry, fearless, extremely funny, flat-out dazzling book.” - Kim Magowan, author of Undoing: Stories

The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross’s second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son’s spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together—or, sometimes, tear us apart.

PRAISE FOR SHAPESHIFTING

“Ross’s characters invite us into their most vulnerable moments and confess the kinds of imperfections that keep plenty of mothers awake at night.”
—Mom Egg Review

“An unsparing meditation on pregnancy and motherhood…”
—Full Stop

“Sharp, moving, immensely satisfying.” — Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson

“…Each story feels like its own new world.”
— Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections

“A book of startling transformations, of becoming unrecognizable to yourself, and, even more unsettling, of seeing yourself through the eyes of others. In writing that is deadpan funny and deeply perceptive about familial relationships, Ross writes so beautifully about the strangeness of the world, of making a life within the absurdity and hoping you survive it. An incredible collection.” — Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

“Here is a writer who does not gloss. The roles of women are brutal. There is no shortage of blood. But beneath the social dictates pumps a primal current, to which her characters latch, however desperately, as a reminder that we are all, at our core, nothing but messy, instinctual, glorious animals.”
—Sara Lippmann, author of Jerks

“Don’t let the smooth prose fool you: these stories have teeth, tearing at our sacred myths of motherhood and womanhood and partnerships.
— Jennifer Wortman, author of This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love.

“Each story illuminates the sometimes rewarding, often painstaking, task of buoying our children while keeping our own heads above water.”
— Sahar Mustafah, author of The Beauty of Your Face

“Michelle Ross writes with biting clarity about motherhood, womanhood, and the strange intensities of human connection.”
— Siel Ju, author of Cake Time

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Ross is the author of three story collections: There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), winner of the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award and Finalist for the 2017 Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Award for Short Stories, Shapeshifting, winner of the 2020 Stillhouse Press Short Story Award (2021), and They Kept Running, winner of the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (2022).

Her fiction has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Epiphany, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, TriQuarterly, Witness, and other venues. Her fiction has been anthologized in Flash Fiction America; Best Small Fictions 2021 and 2023; Best Microfiction 2020, 2021, and 2023; and the Wigleaf Top 50 2019 and 2022, among other anthologies. Her work received special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology. As of May 2023, she is joining the staff of 100 Word Story. Before that, she served as fiction editor of Atticus Review and was a consulting editor for the 2018 Best Small Fictions anthology.

A native of Texas, Michelle received her B.A. from Emory University and her M.F.A and M.A. from Indiana University. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband and son. 

For more news and press, check out Michelle’s website.

ALSO BY MICHELLE ROSS