Our Island of Epidemics was published in 2010 by PANK Little Books. Buy it here. Read some praise. Go to the website. There is also a HYPERTEXT version (FREE!).

Fourteen tiny tales recount the story of a community of island dwellers who catch their island’s strange and fleeting epidemics—epidemics like memory loss, unrequited love, magic, extrasensitive hearing, talking to animals, and dissociation—and the relationship that the people of the island have with their home, with each other, and with the diseases. That is, until one man becomes immune. Told in the collective first-person, OUR ISLAND OF EPIDEMICS examines the nature of tale-telling when the audience for the tale includes the tellers themselves.

“One of the great feats of fiction is to create a world where anything can happen. Matthew Salesses has done this with Our Island of Epidemics and, in doing so, he has revealed the great difficulty of the human condition.” – Michael Kimball

“A brilliant new force in contemporary fiction. I loved this book, and I would gladly follow the author anywhere.” – Laura van den Berg

Individual stories first appeared in the following journals: Cavalier Literary Couture, Pindeldyboz, PANK, Word Riot, Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, Corium Magazine, Thieves Jargon, Kitty Snacks, Hobart, and Everyday Genius.

About the artist: Luca Dipierro