Drawing on a traditional Finnish lullaby, "Lay Down on the Good Earth" celebrates the fortitude of Finnish immigrants in Michigan and the Midwest. As her husband leaves for another day in the copper mines, Sanni reflects on her role as a wife and a mother, happier days in Finland, and the surprising fate of her two sons. Although Sanni's younger years have passed, what remains certain is the process of making nisu - the kneading of the dough, the braiding of bread - each thick ribbon a symbol of the men in Sanni's life and the unending bond of family and tradition.

When a total stranger knows what eats you, maybe they are your one true love. Even if you don't know it yet. || On Friday the 13th, two twenty-something, Daya and Mike, end up in a mutually beneficial arrangement: she is his caregiver after he breaks his foot; he provides room&board to help her out with a teeny-tiny cash flow problem. Not a whiff of a romance, strictly business. And for a while, all is good... for about five minutes, that is. What can an overweight man, a video game obsessed librarian, know about her quitting a challenging sport of figure skating, Daya scoffs. He needs to get off her case and sort out his binge eating! What does a celery-chewing skating diva care about his failure as a PhD candidate, Mike wonders. She is just replacing her dreams with his non-existing problems instead of pursuing her one true passion! With the two already teetering on the brink of mutually assured destruction, oil splashes onto the flames when Daya resumes her never-ending quest for skating triumph at Canadian Nationals. (Well, that should make Mike happy, right? Right?) But isn't there *something* worth fighting for *together*? Like, you know, love? COMPLETED. First Published: August 19, 2019 Trigger warning: This story contains themes of eating disorders and body image insecurity (male).

"You have to beat the words, Marta, beat the stuttering. Learn to speak, to let your voice be heard." After her father's death, all Marta wants to do is hide. Hide from her stuttering. Hide from the world outside her home. Hide from her family who so often reminds her of him. But even Marta realizes she cannot hide forever, and staying hidden gets even harder when her mother decides they are leaving Germany for America. Trying so desperately to cling to her silence, Marta realizes her only relief is writing letters. Until she meets Emma, and the families she is forced to stay with. While the families try to help Marta find her voice; Marta realizes the only way to sail towards her family, is to sail away from her silence.