The Church of Divine Electricity

Delightfully blending literary fiction with speculative genres, the stories in The Church of Divine Electricity somehow manage to feel as though they could take place today. In Emily Mitchell's created worlds, as in our own, technology bewitches us, especially with its ability to heighten both connections and isolation.

Whether being held by a giant and comforting machine, agreeing to allow micro-drones to record one's every moment for a year to win prize money, or choosing self-mutilation in exchange for a bionic hand, the characters in these stories navigate technological and social change. The familiar can turn unrecognizable and disorienting - sometimes in a flash, sometimes gradually. Lyrical, haunting, and often funny, these stories ask us to consider what - and who - gets left out of a seemingly utopian future of technological advancements.

Finely observed, thoughtful, and vivid, Mitchell's stories get under your skin. It's not that the best-laid plans could lead us astray - it's that they may already have.

"Mitchell's prose is crystal clear - there's no hiding the ball. It's thoughtful, perceptive, vivid - and can steam up a mirror! This is excellent work, flawlessly executed." - Michelle Latiolais, author of She and Widow

Emily Mitchell, associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, is the author of a collection of short stories, Viral, and a novel, The Last Summer of the World. Her stories have appeared in Harper's, Ploughshares, The Sun, and elsewhere, and her nonfiction has been published in the New York Times, the New Statesman, and Guernica. She serves as fiction editor for the New England Review. Emily Mitchell's website:

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