“Conners takes us into the private world of ‘real’ people with ‘real’ stories, and does so with deep compassion. . .through skillfully rendered details, we see and hear the voices of steelworkers, prisoners, the ambulance driver, the pharmacist—and the tough voices of working class West Virginia.” —Jan Beatty, author of Jackknife: New and Selected Poems

“The poems are at turns funny and sad, profound and playful.. . . There are . . .poems whose strength relies . . .on a close observation of the everyday as seen through the dual lens of heartache and blue-collar struggle. I must admire, as well, her understated humor in a poem like Sex Ed and the strikingly macabre whimsy of a poem like Ambulance Driver. It is an astonishing first collection holding both power and promise.” –Marc Harshman, Poet Laureate of West Virginia

Carrie Conners, originally from West Virginia, lives in Queens, NY and teaches at LaGuardia Community College-CUNY. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Kestrel, Cider Press Review, Quiddity, and Crab Orchard Review, among others.