Essays at the Mercy of the Reader
Creative Nonfiction; Essay Collection; Flash-Essay Collection
Date Published: September 1, 2025
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
The essays in Selected Misdemeanors are unapologetic word grenades
lobbed into an otherwise complacent forgetfulness. Throughout the collection,
Sue William Silverman focuses on pivotal, often fleeting moments that defined
the course of her life, such as a fraught family vacation; an evening watching
the Chippendale dancers’ extravaganza; a Pac-Man-and-bourbon-fueled
rumination on failed relationships; and the way melodramatic movies such as
Rome Adventure shape an adolescent’s idea of love. Ranging from short to
flash to micro length, these emotionally courageous writings imbue minimalist
forms with maximalist emotions and an unrepentant, no-holds-barred attitude.
Each action explored in this collection produces the Butterfly
Effect—seemingly quotidian events rippling into emotional tsunamis.
lobbed into an otherwise complacent forgetfulness. Throughout the collection,
Sue William Silverman focuses on pivotal, often fleeting moments that defined
the course of her life, such as a fraught family vacation; an evening watching
the Chippendale dancers’ extravaganza; a Pac-Man-and-bourbon-fueled
rumination on failed relationships; and the way melodramatic movies such as
Rome Adventure shape an adolescent’s idea of love. Ranging from short to
flash to micro length, these emotionally courageous writings imbue minimalist
forms with maximalist emotions and an unrepentant, no-holds-barred attitude.
Each action explored in this collection produces the Butterfly
Effect—seemingly quotidian events rippling into emotional tsunamis.
EXCERPT
“Nights, unable to sleep, I drove Houston’s interstates and freeways, around the loop, past the Astrodome and Astroworld, Wyatt’s Cafeteria, Hobby Airport, Shepherd’s Drive-in, past exits for the Katy Freeway, Almeda-Genoa, Buffalo Bayou, the NASA Space Center, heading south toward the Causeway and Galveston Island where my ex-husband still lived. I followed taillights, blasted past headlights, driving inside the outside lines—or was it outside the inside lines—but stuck in a liminal space.”
Contact Links
Blue Sky: @suewsilverman.bsky.social
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