Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings

One day, while looking up a word in the New Oxford American Dictionary, Jez Burrows was stopped in his tracks by an example sentence: “He perched on the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery.” It seemed like a tiny piece of fiction had gotten lost, wandered out of another book and settled down in the dictionary. With that spark, and a handful of experimental stories posted to Tumblr, Dictionary Stories was born.

Genre-bending and wildly inventive, Dictionary Stories is a giddy celebration of the originality, flexibility, and beauty of narrative. Love stories, horror stories, noir mysteries, recipes, eulogies, confessions, thrillers-each one a miniature literary remix of unlikely parts hidden in plain sight, created by flipping through the dictionary and knowing where to stop.

Burrows is a master of immersive, immediate narratives. Effortlessly transcending sentence level, he lights between the profound and the absurd with a few carefully assembled sentences, transporting readers into moments, worlds, and experiences of remarkable variety. From the everyday (dating, family, jealousy, memory) to the extraordinary (the apocalypse, fantasies, murder, the occult).

Organized alphabetically by theme and featuring original illustrations by the author, this continually surprising and wonderfully weird collection glows with humor, emotion, and intellect. Dictionary Stories will speak to language lovers, creative minds, and anyone who has ever appreciated the power of small things.