Spoil the Child by Denise Howard Long

“In the stories of Spoil the Child, Long renders the hardest of lives in evocative and musical prose and conjures an intimate intensity of feeling in her characters. Long weds the brutal with the beautiful—these are stories readers will not soon forget.”

–CJ Hauser, author of The From-Aways

“Keenly observant, intelligent, and empathetic, Spoil the Child is a stunning debut. Like the sharpest, thinnest blade, Denise Long’s writing will split you open delicately, and with precision. These stories cut deep and resonate far beyond the page. Masterful work.”

–Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life and Together We Can Bury It

“This collection cuts deep, unafraid of what it might reveal. It’s flash fiction at its very finest, the tiniest detail given the most intense scrutiny. It’s a collection stuffed with the familiar—dollhouses, block parties, a Ferris wheel—but Long gives each element the tiniest of twists, so each moment surprises and enlightens.”

–Randall Brown, author of Mad to Live, and founding editor of FlashFiction.net, Matter Press, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.

“Spoil the Child is beauty and darkness in equal amounts. Each engaging story is deftly crafted and honed to perfection. I’m mesmerized by each and every page.”

–Windy Lynn Harris, author of Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays