First Fiction Fridays: Prerequisites for Sleep by Jennifer L. Stone
There is an element of playfulness present in many of these stories, which works surprisingly well juxtaposed to their serious and subtle nature. Stone’s characters feel real and have dilemmas that you will recognize. Her stories both entertain and leave you to ponder. They may even cause you to lose sleep.
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What:Prerequisites for Sleep (Signature Editions, 2014)Who:  Jennifer L. Stone has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Grain, Other Voices, FreeFall, carte blanche, All Rights Reserved, The Wascana Review, Qwerty and Riddle Fence. Her story “Prerequisites for Sleep” was selected to appear in Canadian Content, Seventh Edition. In 2010, she was awarded first prize in Grain’s Annual Short Story Contest. She lives in Mineville, Nova Scotia, where she may have the distinction of being the only author in town.Why you need to read this now:  Jennifer L. Stone once created a twenty-five foot pink inflatable elephant. Some twenty years later, this elephant was recreated as a quirky detail in one of the short stories in her debut collection, Prerequisites for Sleep. This collection is full of unconventional details, like involuntarily gagging during a kiss, walls the colour of sweat-stained undershirts, tractor trailers that roar and groan and smoke like dragons pressed into service against their will, a round room constructed of feathers and breezes, details that make Jennifer L. Stone a new maritime voice that you will want to read again and again.There is an element of playfulness present in many of these stories, which works surprisingly well juxtaposed to their serious and subtle nature. Stone’s characters feel real and have dilemmas that you will recognize. Her stories both entertain and leave you to ponder. They may even cause you to lose sleep.
