The Future Never Lasts

A collection of short stories that are finger on the pulse of our individual and collective secrets, exploring the cost of hiding them or trying to share them. Some, like the protagonists in "It's Usually This Dark By Now" and "A Crime of Opportunity," can't afford the price tag on those secrets. Others, like the history-haunted veteran in "This Time Comes From That Time" or the teenage narrator in "Mountain," swallow them whole. A few, like the husband and wife in "Augmented Finality" and the three couples in "Ten Things You Don't Know About Me," make uneasy peace with those secrets. Rich characters and a literary style make this a go-to for lovers of short fiction.

Phillip Gardner is a three-time South Carolina Fiction Project winner and a Piccolo Spoleto Fiction Open winner. His stories have appeared in the North American Review, New Delta Review, LIT, Interim, The Chattahoochee Review, and other journals. His stories have been anthologized in Inheritance: Selections from The South Carolina Fiction Project (Hub City Writers Project) and A Shared Voice (Lamar University Press). He is the author of three short story collections: Someone To Crawl Back To, Somebody Wants Somebody Dead, and Available Light (Boson Books). He teaches at Francis Marion University.