Counting the Wounds - Literary Short Story by Best American Short Stories Alum Lyn Coffin

Lyn Coffin's new short story Counting the Wounds introduces us to Susan in a moment of deep personal loss. The story, based on a family tragedy in the author's own life, is one Coffin says has taken her 35 years to write.

Here's what readers are saying about the story:

"This is one of the best and most beautifully written short stories I’ve ever read. It unfolds as a detective story full of mystery and emotional tension. It pulls the reader into the dense atmosphere of a family drama releasing its secrets slowly."

"The reading of it is quick--the pondering after goes on and on."

"Lyn distills the anatomy of loss...masterful.

Coffin was chosen by Joyce Carol Oates for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories in 1979. She's gone on to build a successful writing career as an author of short fiction and novels, as a playwright and a poet, as a translator and an educator. In this story her power as an illustrator of the human experience is on full display. Counting the Wounds is a short read, a character-driven story of loss and grief, but readers will find themselves thinking of their own relationships and perhaps even their own moments of tragedy and loss as they watch Susan struggling to face hers.