Zero Day Bluejay

TARTT FIRST FICTION AWARD

: Zero Day Blue Jay is a collection of stories featuring the complexity of human relationships-both in triumph and in chaos-and aims to witness how characters attempt to negotiate the uncontrollable context of their lives. Ranging from fatherhood, to social criticism of the institutionalized racism of the American justice system, to the Jewish subversion of the Nazi War Machine, to a criticism of capitalism and academia; the stories cover a spectrum of human experience and discourse in the vein of exploration and empathy. A "zero day," in backpacking terms, is a day where the hiker does not complete any miles of their trek. For reasons of rest, weather, or unforeseeable hindrances, the hiker will forgo the heavy mileage and heavy pack for a shelter, tent, lodging, or bar. They are days of stillness amidst a journey of movement. They are days for reading, reading that sometimes has an awful squawk, but sometimes has blue feathers.