“Elizabeth Bruce’s stories have that rare quality of feeling as though they have always existed, the way the best stories always do. In a lesser writer’s hands, the conceit of beginning each story with ‘one dollar’ might seem like a gimmick, but here they echo Wallace Stevens’ ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,’ and I found myself eager for what came next, curious to see how each new story amplifies the previous story while also diverging from it, often in dramatically different points of view and styles. These are exquisite short stories that give me hope.”

John McNally, author of
The Book of Ralph and The Fear of Everything (USA)

“This collection contains inventiveness, voice, and vivid characters grappling with life and love, pouring forth on each new page. Together the stories weave a remarkable tapestry around a theme with a shockingly familiar starting point. By the end, we see in how the author guides our attention, new ways of seeing ourselves and the constellations of our closest relationships. It’s breathtaking.”

David A. Taylor, author of Success: Stories and
Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America (USA)

“I've been eagerly awaiting this collection of one of a kind short-shorts from the author of And Silent Left the Place. Keen-eyed and with a great gift for stand-out narratives at whose heart is a profound appreciation of the particular, Bruce takes us on a magical realist journey through the lives of ordinary people whose lives turn on a dollar. A gifted storyteller, Bruce is at her best here. The stories sing with ingenuity and keep us in her spell. Just how far can one dollar take a person? You'd be amazed.”

Naomi Ayala, author of Calling Home: Praise Songs & Incantations (USA)
Winner, Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental Justice Award

"Elizabeth Bruce's stories shine a light on the conflicts--big and small--that we face in life and our struggles to resolve them. She writes thoughtfully and elegantly about the pain and beauty of being alive."

Eric Stover, author of The Witnesses:
War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague (USA)

“This lovely story captures the evanescence of time, the way the smallest moments inform a life, and the chance encounters of memory. The story's heart, the moment of revelation, is beautifully textured.”

Janet Peery, National Book Award Finalist
author of Alligator Dance and The River Beyond the World (USA)
about “Starry Lashes”

“In an America of the not-too-distant past, people plastered bumper stickers onto their cars that implored people to ‘Practice Random Acts of Kindness.’ In Elizabeth Bruce’s hands we learn that the answer to grief is kindness. Instead of pandemic, Bruce offers us a contagion of hope in her wonderful, incredibly humane stories.”

Nick Kocz, Winner, Washington Square Fiction
Award and MacDowell Fellowship
and author (as S.M. Thayer), I Will Never Leave You (USA)

“’Dolores’ is a fine, polished story by a versatile and inventive mind definitely worth looking into.”

Ian Allaby, Publisher and Editor
Spadina Literary Review (Canada)

“In ‘Ice Cold Water,’ Elizabeth Bruce puts the reader inside the anxiety a son has for his father's disdain for people of color, or ‘parasites living off the likes of you and me,’ as his father says. With crisp writing, we experience what becomes a powerful and tender moment between the two, as the son is witness to his father's evolution.”

Melanie S. Hatter, author of Malawi’s Sisters (USA),
winner of Kimbilio National Fiction Prize,
judged by Edwidge Danticat

“’Forgiveness Man’ is quintessential Elizabeth Bruce—that rhythm, that wit, that clarity--a song in story form.”

Kathleen Wheaton, President
Washington Writers’ Publishing Housw
author of Aliens and Other Stories (USA)

"A powerful and moving story. Like the bell, it is a real gift."

Evelyn Torton Beck, Ph.D., Professor Emerita,
University of Maryland
Harriet Tubman Department of Women,
Gender and Sexuality Studies
Editor of Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (USA) about “The Bell”

“Elizabeth Bruce is the ninja of flash fiction. In her story, ‘Ricky Steiner Was Supposed to Die in Prison.,’ her literary precision pierces that tender spot that both stings and satisfies the reader's soul.”

Joy Jones, author of Jayla Jumps In and
Fearless Public Speaking (USA)

"A beautifully-crafted gem glittering with wit and insight."

Sarah Pleydell, author of Cologne (USA)
about "Boiling the Buggers"

An uncanny Scottish will with country folks ticked off about a dollar. They’re not taking any bull. (“Festus”) A dollar and an outhouse mishap. “With arms like cellophane around a loaf of bread and stubborn as a rat bit mule.” (“Gas Station”) Snake oil for only a dollar, via New Orleans house of the rising sun on to Texas (“The Grass Jesus Walked On”). I loved them all.

Catfish McDaris, beat poet and author of 25+ books,
including Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski (USA)

“Elizabeth Bruce has the gift of saying more with fewer words, leaving readers everything they need to know while trusting them to assemble the character between the lines. ‘Magic Fingers’ is a story anyone would be proud of. For Elizabeth it’s another in a long string of similar successes that includes her wonderful novel, And Silent Left the Place.”

Dana King, author of Penns River
and Nick Forte series of crime novels (USA)

Elizabeth Bruce is a wonderful prose stylist. “In ‘Evening in Paris’ a preadolescent migrant fruit picker, Willa Rae, chances upon a stray dollar and embarks on a risky escapade to parlay her good luck into possession of the most exotic prize imaginable in her small world – a flask high on a shelf in a local establishment known to her only as ‘the store.’ After getting a glimpse into the bigoted world within, the impetuous young woman rebels the only way she knows how. I loved this story.”

Richard Judy, Georgia Author of the Year Finalist,
author of THRU: An Appalachian Trail Love Story

UNIVERSALLY ADORED & OTHER $1.00 Stories + OTHER FICTION

Just launched from Vine Leaves Press!

GREAT REVIEW from WASHINGTON CITY PAPER:

“Universally Adored Unravels the Power of the Dollar Bill”

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UNIVERSALLY ADORED & OTHER $1.00 Stories + Other Fiction

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Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories: A Collection of Short Fictions