David James Poissant’s stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, Glimmer Train, The New York Times, One Story, Playboy, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies. His writing has been awarded the Matt Clark Prize, the George Garrett Fiction Award, the RopeWalk Fiction Chapbook Prize and the Alice White Reeves Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts & Letters. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters. His debut short story collection, THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS, was published by Simon & Schuster on March 11, 2014. He is currently at work on a novel, CLASS, ORDER, FAMILY, also forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

Books by David James Poissant

The Heaven of Animals: Stories

by David James Poissant - Fiction, Short Stories

Most of the stories in David James Poissant’s debut collection are set in the American South, and all are melancholy tales of domestic discord and loss. A cook at a diner pitches his gay teenage son through a window. A couple’s baby dies from SIDS. A wife is killed in a car accident. A teenager loses a limb. This is grim subject matter, but Poissant’s work is distinguished by his compassion and his gift for the well-turned phrase.