Churn: An Illustrated Novel-In-Stories

Winner of The 2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize, selected by Vi Khi Nao

Siblings Jordan and Chung face a costly existence on their family's Kansas farm. On a conciliatory trip once again turned violent, Jordan and Chung escape the chaos of their parents' fighting to the middle of a lake. When something pulls them under, a voice speaks to them. In their long trudge back to the living, they find their chemistries altered. Jordan breathes smoke when angry. Chung flops like a fish out of water when provoked. In the years following, they navigate their parents' separation, their father's alcoholism and mother's growing paranoia. In adulthood, Jordan and Chung grieve, love, and come into their own. From the plains of rural Kansas to hundred-acre towns, the end of the universe to its primordial breath, Churn mines the uncanny to tell a story of rural Kansas like you've never seen before.