Atelier26 Books & Friends

Margaret Malone is, in my opinion, Portland’s best short story writer. Her 2015 collection People Like You is lonely and comic, prickly and sweet—a book I open up on occasion just to remember its goodness. When recommending her work, I often say she’s a funnier Raymond Carver, or a more grounded Mary Robison or Amy Hempel. But the small worlds she builds, and the atmospheres she creates within them, are firmly her own. Also reading: Woody Skinner, Sidney Wade, and more.