short fiction
essays
& auto-fiction
**VIEW IN LANDSCAPE MODE WHEN USING AN iPAD or MOBILE DEVICES
SHORT FICTION
BY MARY PRLAINOVIC
This is a collection of auto-fiction. Stories of love, betrayal and murder. A bored guy looks for pie and ends up with more than he wanted. A family is exposed for better or worse. A rancher moves on after insurmountable grief. A hipster shrine is burned to the ground. Never marry a rock star. A deadbeat Russian inspires and other tales of hope and loss. Stories written in Berlin, Prague, New York City, London and Yucca Valley.
ORANGE CRUSH
a “Best Of” collection of work from the last 20 years.
pick up on madonna street
essays and short stories
Excerpts
“I loved Jack with all the ignorance I possessed.”
“With the front door shut the dangerous and sullen housewife emerged. Retreating to the kitchen to smash and bang her way through the clean up, with my clueless father at a loss of how to handle her. It was always thus.”
“It was winter so I stuck there like Velcro against the wind. His hand was always hooked inside my collar dare it break off and fly loose.”
“I read the story about the parents last night. It is so beautiful.”
— SZ, architect
“There’s a breeziness to the stories. Lovely. But also, especially at the end, a powerful tug and poignancy that feels honest not cloying.”
—SP, film professional
Say what?
“The writing style is vivid, yet elegant and efficient-sort of like a guillotine.”
— FF, lawyer
“You are a beautiful writer and your writing voice is extremely original. I feel when I'm reading your writing that you're sharing secrets. your charming narrative voice: sophisticated yet still raw; wary but not yet jaded; at once homely in desire (in the British sense, cozy and safe as houses) and glitteringly international in sensibility; acutely attentive to a particular kind of detail and what its presence signifies - culturally, aesthetically, psychologically. The essay on the murder was transcendant”
-S Gillooly, Yale
“I loved these stories. I love that I hear you narrate to me. I loved that I couldn’t help create a mini movie montage in my mind with each page.”
— JR, graphic designer
mary prlainovic
Prlainovic was born in Berkeley, CA but has been living in New York City for most of her adult life with breaks in European backwaters. She is a film industry professional with a writing side hustle. Four of her stories were chosen as finalists in The Red Hen Press short story awards of Los Angeles. She was accepted into The Kenyon Review Writers Workshops but didn’t attend. Prlainovic has also written several screenplays. Prlainovic seeks a divine intervention.
photo by T Cain ©2022
PHASE PRESSE CZ 2020