Wings & Other Things: Stories by Craig, Chauna 2024 NEUF

Wings & Other Things is a book of migrations. Its characters flutter and flap, take off and land, then take off again as they seek the places they belong. These are characters caught in transition: a widow searching for a past self on an "Impossible Blue" coast, lovers explaining to the police and themselves why theyre hiding in a Nebraska cornfield, a teacher on a flight from Chengdu struggling to be understood, a stranded artist accepting a ride from a stranger on a highway haunted by the ghost of a woman who never made it home. Each story is a transformation as Craig turns railroad tracks into an "infinite number line" and a lightning bolt into a "tentacle of the unseen." A plastic fork becomes a parable of fragility, and a "scrap moon" is an image of what is lost and what yet remains. Even a single word captures longing, instinct, regret, and stubborn hope: "Fly, fly, fly."