Madeline ffitch is the author of the novel Stay and Fight, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a Lambda Literary Prize, as well as the story collection Valparaiso, Round the Horn. She cofounded the punk theater company Missoula Oblongata and was part of the rural direct action collective Appalachia Resist, which took as its commitments environmental and racial justice. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, Tin House, Granta, and n+1, among other publications. She is the recipient of a Creative Capital State of the Art Prize and two O. Henry Prizes, and her writing was included in The Best American Short Stories 2024. She lives with her children in the hills of Appalachian Ohio.