Kate Blackwell

"If Blackwell has one unifying theme, it's how ritual both distances people and enables them to live together. This shrewd collection should appeal to fans of contemporary Southern short story masters like Tim Gautreaux and John Biguenet." --Publishers Weekly


"Engaging characters face the tangles of life--marriage, adultery, malfeasance, aging, pregnancy--in this adroit debut collection."--Booklist


"With this short-story collection, Kate Blackwell enters the company of contemporary writers–Anne Tyler and Roxana Robinson come to mind–who plumb these shadowy, silent dramas." --Dallas Morning News


"HOW do writers do it? How do they take the same tiresome human dramas and make us care, make us wonder how it will turn out this time? In the first story in this debut collection, "My First Wedding," the narrator asks, "For who will remember women like my mother, my aunt, and Augusta? Who will remember any of us who live so hidden, so far from nearly everything?" The details of their lives, like those of many of Kate Blackwell's middle-class women, are familiar to the point of invisibility. But something inside them struggles to get out."
-- Los Angeles Times


"Blackwell's stories are jewels, each polished and tweaked to perfection, characters vividly rendered and plots as tightly wound as watch springs.” --Baton Rouge Advocate


"...Blackwell's collection of 12 stories may be one of the best books of the year." --The Clarion Ledger


"..... one of the finest collections I've read.” --Winston-Salem (NC) Journal


"These stories reveal an exceptional, well-crafted talent that invites us into places and the lives of characters the reader would not otherwise have access. These are edgy lives filled with conflict and tension, stories that span decades. This book is a real treat for anyone who loves good writing." --Bookviews


“…the kind of truth that fiction gets at best.” --Raleigh (NC) News & Observer


‘Author Kate Blackwell has a gift for shining a spotlight on the complexities of mundane people and places. In her debut work of fiction - a collection of short stories called "You Won't Remember This" - she introduces her readers to the seemingly ordinary and gives "forgettable" characters emotional depth and mystery.’
--Interview with Frank Stasio, The State of Things, WUNC