Reminiscent of the styles of Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver, Throwaway Stories is a collection of modern American fiction about the small moments that define our lives. Rich with irony, humor, and some darkness, these stories are about the choices we make, and how we justify them to ourselves.

Shawna Mayer started writing short stories in high school for her history classes. Her teachers' enthusiasm for her work encouraged her to write more. Once she was in college, she was drawn to enroll in English and writing classes until she figured she'd better major it. After taking a break for a few years to pay off her student loans she returned and got a Master's degree in English with a specialization in writing. Shawna has an interest in dark subject matter and has read extensively about true crime, cults, and obscure, morally ambiguous historical figures. Her vacations usually incorporate at least one visit to a cemetery. Her partner of a decade will ask, "so who's buried there," when she suggests a vacation destination. She's been published in the Illinois Times, the Quincy Herald-Whig, Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, riverrun, Fine Lines, Slab, Halloween Haiku II, Every Day Fiction (online), heavytable, and many more that she has lost track of over the years.

"Stories complete with quirky characters facing ironies in everyday life, sometimes with courage, sometimes not so much." - Martha Miller

"In this master work of humor and heartbreak, Shawna Mayer introduces us to the secret lives of people we meet routinely at the bank, on the playground, in a neighbor's kitchen. We learn the fictions by which they live – their throwaway stories – that help them (and sneakily help us) make a strange – but sometimes wonderful – sense of a world that spins, oh so tantalizingly, just beyond our control." - Rodd Whelpley