Short, Vigorous Roots - by Mark Budman & Susan O'Neill (Paperback)

About the Book

"This flash fiction anthology examines the experience of being a transplant in a foreign land, giving a glimpse into the immense loss of oneself in juxtaposition to the strange beauty of rediscovery. The collection looks critically at what it means to forsake tongues, traditions, and comforts in the hope of starting a new life in another world. By exploring a diverse map of migrant experiences, these stories push readers to expand their understanding of the world as it exists beyond their own front doors. This collection contains forty affecting works written by several multigenerational immigrant authors from countries around the world, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Cuba, England, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldavia, Morocco, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sicily, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States, and Vietnam. Regardless of their origin, all share the experience of putting down roots in new soil. Each story examines how adapting to new lives and lands impacts the author's understanding of themselves and their community. At a thousand words or fewer, every vignette redefines resilience and the meaning of home; the intensity of each is captivating from the very first line"--

Book Synopsis

The line between imagination and reality blurs in these forty poignant pieces written by first- and second-generation immigrant authors.

This flash fiction anthology examines the experiences of being a transplant in a foreign land and looks critically at what it means to forsake tongues, traditions, and comforts in the hope of starting a new life in another world. These stories push readers to expand their understanding of the world beyond their own front doors.

The collection contains forty affecting works written by several multigenerational immigrant authors from countries around the world, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Cuba, England, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldavia, Morocco, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United States, and Vietnam. Regardless of their origin, all share the experience of putting down roots in new soil and examining how adapting to new lives and lands impacts the characters' understanding of themselves and their community. The stories are organized into four parts: "Past the Limits of the Familiar," "The Change is Slow," "Inheriting the Earth," and "Tired of Waiting for Home." At a thousand words or fewer, every vignette redefines resilience and the meaning of home.

Contributing Authors

• Ellison Alcovendaz


• Nancy Au


• Genia Blum


• Aida Bode


• Raffi Boyadjian


• Philip Charter


• James Corpora


• Walerian Domanski


• Ingrid Jendrzejewski


• Varya Kartishai


• Masha Kisel


• Ruth Knafo Setton


• Nina Kossman


• Rimma Kranet


• Shaun Levin


• Amit Majmudar


• Maija Mäkinen


• Sayantika Mandal


• Erick Messias


• A. Molotkov


• Feliz Moreno


• Kathy Nguyen


• Alexandros Plasatis


• Irina Popescu


• Stuart Stromin


• Edvin Subasic


• Yong Takahashi


• Alizah Teitelbaum


• Lazar Trubman


• Jose Varghese


• Marina Villa


• Yara Zghbeib

Review Quotes

Short, Vigorous Roots is a work of resilience, and complex beauty.

--Kathryn Savage, World Literature Today

Each story vividly portrays the trials, fears, and hopes of an emigrant immigrating into a strange land. A wondrous array of voices and moods from a wondrous variety of countries.

-- Joe Taylor, Director at Livingston Press

The anthology is a space of brevity and closeness; this quality unites the deeply character-driven works.

--Kathryn Savage, at World Literature Today

The stories in Short, Vigorous Roots are as the volume's title implies: immediate and bright, brief and grasping. The immediacy and the brevity of flash fiction emphasizes how putting down roots in a new land is an incomplete process, an ongoing story of creation and survival, fragile and tenuous, yet ardent and resilient . . . In less than a thousand words, these stories cross borders and generations. Whatever belonging these characters arrive to, it will bear the marks of the past and tenaciously move forward.

-- Matt Chelf, Northwest Review