Fiction. Short Stories. A bonus book included with the Quadrants Series, with stories by Robert Ashley, Sumner Carnahan, Thomas Frick, and L. K. Larsen. "The center point in Q+1 is simply enough the short story: an elastic vessel for fiction, able to accommodate narrative arcs, whether revealed in a chaptered micro-bildungsroman, as in Robert Ashley's 'The Hardware Days Almost Gone;' manifested as computer instructions in Sumner Carnahan's 'Authentic Incarnation;' told through the unreliable dual point-of-view narrator in Thomas Frick's 'Troubadour Awakening;' or, with a flash of epiphany, as in L. K. Larsen's 'Leave a Message.' By pushing the short story in these ways, the works demonstrate the realization of Frick's narrator when he quotes literary theorist George Steiner: 'Difficulty is the armature of meaning.' Certainly, many of the fourteen pieces in Q+1—and the novels they accompany—push story to its limits. And still the center holds."—Julia Goldberg

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Robert Ashley is a prolific composer and writer, best known for his work in new forms of opera: epic prose poems he sets to music, which have been awarded, commissioned, and performed internationally for over forty- five years. Sumner Carnahan has collaborated with composers, performers, and artists for decades and has six books in print and numerous recordings of her work. Thomas Frick has received awards and fellowships for his writing—short fiction and essays—which have been widely published. L. K. Larsen received an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and a Recursos 2000 Discovery Award for her poetry and short works of fiction.