Pascha Sotolongo will discuss her new short story collection with author and UNL Creative Writing Director Timothy Schaffert in a Zoom session sponsored by Francie & Finch.

In the tradition of narrativa de lo inusual (narrative of the unusual), “The Only Sound is the Wind,” the new short story collection by Sotolongo, combines the fantastic with the everyday, weaving elements of magical realism and surrealist twists to sharpen our view of human (and animal) connection. In the title story, the arrival of a mail-order clone complicates a burgeoning romance; a lonely librarian longing for her homeland strikes up an unusual relationship in the award-winning “The Moth”; when humans start giving birth to puppies and kittens in “This New Turn,” a realignment of the natural order ensues. With a playful tenderness and satirical bent, “The Only Sound is the Wind” explores solitude and communion, opening strange new worlds where characters try to make their way toward love, in stories that feature Cuban American characters and uncanny, speculative twists.

Sotolongo Stevenson is an assistant professor of practice in the UNL Department of English and a member of the Creative Writing faculty. Her fiction has appeared in such esteemed journals as Pleiades, American Short Fiction, the Pinch and the Normal School.