Softie: Stories — Megan Howell

2025 PEN America Finalist, Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection2025 National Book Award Honoree, "5 Under 35" 2025 Gold Medal, Independent Publishing Book Awards (IPPY): Short Fiction In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in Softie transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places.  A former child star haunted by a past she can't remember. An Afro-French girl with an obsession for ear lobes. A loner whose only friend is hiding a terrible, otherworldly secret. Each of these stories shares situations that are sometimes fantastical, sometimes commonplace, but always strange. From a Corsican vacation town in its off-season to hospital rooms and a seedy hotel suite in Chicago, experience the every day come fully untethered from reality.