Praise for Walk Back from Monkey School

“Written in a style that is fluid and poetic, but controlled and precise, Kate Hill Cantrill delivers thirty-three stories that will quite simply knock you out. With compassion and intelligence, she captures the emotions, the brilliant missteps, the sometimes awful, but inevitable actions of the human heart in conflict with itself. Echoing words from one of Cantrill's stories, I will say of Walk Back from Monkey School: 'How perfect is this, how very needed at this time.'”

  — Kathy Fish, author of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness

"This debut collection is a constant surprise. There are tender, lyrical stories about longing and dogs and sick mothers and disoriented geese, and short pieces with jagged edges and daring rhythms about leaves and leaving, about father who swim laps in the ocean, and everywhere, all day, children who notice.”

  — Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers and Other Stories

“Cantrill writes from a tiny room filled with large, loud sounds: clicking dog claws and fluttering bird wings, sneezes and sudden coughs. The tension in this room insists the reader listens. In Cantrill's onomatopoetic prose, we hear the familiar sounds of dysfunctional families, love gone wrong, comic mishaps, private desires, and other transmissions from places where we break. But throughout these sonic, sensitive stories, we also hear how we might heal.”

  — Anthony Tognazzini, author of I Carry a Hammer In My Pocket for Occasions Such as These

About the Author

Kate Hill Cantrill's writing has appeared in literary publications including Story  Quarterly, Salt Hill, The Believer, Blackbird, QuickFiction, Mississippi Review,  Smokelong Quarterly, Swink, and others. She has been awarded fellowships from the  Corporation of Yaddo, the Jentel Artists Residency, the Virginia Center for Creative  Arts, and the James A. Michener Fund. She has taught fiction writing at The  University of the Arts, The University of Texas, and the Sackett Street Workshop. She  lives in Brooklyn where she curates the Rabbit Tales Reading and Performance Series  and is completing a novel.