Winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize, Douglas Watson's fiction collection The Era of Not Quite is unique in its "sublimely serious play and playful seriousness," says Heavy Feather review. "When I read Douglas Watson’s debut story collection, The Era of Not Quite," says the reviewer, "I was awash with a rare and nourishing feeling: that what I was reading was exactly what I needed to be reading at that time exactly. Each of his stories deals a dark and witty blow. The collection is alive with a searing sense of humor, with wild formal play. It cranked me up and it stomped me down. I've been recommending this book to everyone." Stirred by the relationship between life and art, Watson's short stories are blazing with terror, humor, frailty, and tenderness--the combination of which, Christine Schutt suggests, "can mend a broken world." "In life," Watson states in the Heavy Feather interview, "there's no filter. Everything just comes at you from all sides at all times, and you don't even have time to try to makes sense of it, because every day bring a new jumble of knives coming at you. Knives and other things. Whereas art is the product of reflection." In these works of art, Douglas creates approachable narrators whose sharp wit and clever voices reveal the raw truths about life--both fortunate and unfortunate--that are often inescapable and unwarranted. Click here to read the full Heavy Feather interview with author Douglas Watson.