In 1993, a group of writers began meeting in Asheville's Flatiron Building to read and critique one another's work. The three authors of this selection of short fiction — Genève Bacon, Toby Heaton and Heather Newton — have continued to meet, and have published award-winning stories and essays in various publications.

In 2007, as the Flatiron Writers, they won a Regional Artist Project Grant from the state and local arts councils to publish a diverse collection of short stories.

The result is Irons in the Fire.

The characters in Toby Heaton's Coping With Purgatory—among them, an archaeologist, a baseball card collector, and an Appalachian farmer—have all suffered loss, pushing them into a limbo of unexplored emotional pain. In these stories, the protagonists forge their own unique accommodations to make their lives bearable. (View a partial story, Emmett's Shoes )

Southern voices flow through Heather Newton’s Water Stories like the rivers, rains and baptismal waters that course through the South itself. A shifty log-home salesman, a grandmother mourning the loss of a baby, a boy running logs down the Cape Fear River after the Civil War, all look to the waters for cleansing, redemption or escape. (View a partial story, House of Twigs )

Table of Contents

What I Did For Love - Geneve Bacon

The Persian Lover
Bird on a Wire
Chiquita Señorita
Rainy Days and Sundays
Staying Alive
Perdida
Dream of Ixchel

Coping With Purgatory – Toby Heaton

Long Long Road
Taking Sebastian
Emmett’s Shoes
Skobie Polka
A Scattering of Old Bones

Water Stories – Heather Newton

Little Betsy Stewart
The Birthday
House of Twigs
The Frog and Nightgown
Living Water
McMullen Circle
Tupelo Rose
The Walk