Claiming One

“You run or you fight. Pick either one, but do something.”

In this powerful collection of 17 short stories, E.J. Runyon traces the raw, lopsided trail of hope that winds through the hearts of people caught between flight and denial… and all the impossible ground in between.

The characters of Claiming One are deeply loving and tragically flawed. We meet them in the wake of upheaval: a moment when something has already broken, shifted, or been quietly lost. What follows is the slow erosion of once-solid convictions, creating a cycle of belief and doubt that exposes the fault lines of ordinary lives.

These are people who run toward burning buildings as often as they try to escape them. Each story captures a moment of choice: we witness perilous options, discoveries and decisions which reveal how flawed, resilient humanity asserts itself in moments that cannot be reversed.

In the tradition of Flannery O’Connor, John Fante, Bret Harte, and Raymond Carver, E.J. Runyon writes with unflinching regional honesty to ground her fictional worlds so deeply in reality that the line between story and lived experience begins to blur.

Content Warnings: This title contains mention of abuse, mental illness, queerphobia, self-injurious behaviour, and natural disasters.

Tropes: Absent parents, Adulting is a scam, Blast from the past, Close quarters, Coming of age, Coming out story, Community vs isolation, Dysfunctional family, Far from home, First love, Forbidden love, Found family, Found purpose, Healing from trauma, Hope after collapse, Kindness as Strength, Moral grey choices, No character is safe, Road trip, Second chances, Stranger danger, Survival through cooperation, Unreliable narrator, Useless adults.

Keywords: LGBT family; lgbt short stories; us latino literature; flawed characters to root for; stories about identity; human resilience; queer lit; emotional literary fiction; loss and survival; hope and doubt; for fans of Raymond Carver; similar to Flannery O’Connor.

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Full Sell Sheet: Download PDF Here

Author: E.J. Runyon
Category/Genre: Short Stories / Literary
Release Date: January 2012

Format: Paperback (978-1-908600-06-6)
Pages: 208
RRP: £12.50 / 16.00€ / $18.99

Format: eBook (ePUB) (978-1-908600-07-3)
RRP: £3.99 / 3.99€ / $3.99

With Thanks To:

BBeBooks Thailand (Formatting)
Venetia Jackson (Cover Design)
Peter Stewart (Editing)
Laura Cayuela-Ferrero (Proofreading)

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Runyon tells her stories with an unashamed truthfulness. The work is edgy, but never gratuitously so, never for the sake of edginess. At the same time, there exists a compelling emotional accessibility. If you are willing to risk reading, it will challenge you, capture your attention, and dare you to continue till the very last.

– Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward

With this first collection, Runyon is following in the tradition of the great regional American writers. Flannery O’Connor, John Fante, Bret Harte, and Sinclair Lewis. The triumph of their stories was due in part to the writers’ craftsmanship and vision, but also to the honesty of the narrative which grounded the fictive worlds deeply in reality.

– Adam Burgess, Roof Beam Reader