Cincinnati Magazine
John Young’s
Fire in the Field and Other Stories, a collection of 16 short stories that are at once melancholy and heartening, will be published next week by Golden Antelope Press. The Cincinnati writer evokes both the rural Midwest of the late 20th century and the vulnerability of the human experience and, like his novel
When the Coin Is in the Air, continues to explore emotional flashpoints with enduring consequences.
How does the book cover, which your son designed, set the tone for the stories?
The cover features a pastoral field with a blue-gray sky, interrupted by a large red circle in the middle with one edge erupting into flame. The title is in the circle, but the type extends just beyond the edges. To me it suggests that this place is both beautiful and dangerous, while the type extending beyond the circle implies something that can’t quite be contained or easily explained. You know some bad things are going to happen between these covers, but