WE ARE ALL BUT FUMBLING CREATURES
Chad B. Anderson & Jeffrey D. Guinn
$20 | Short Stories + Mixed Media Assemblages
This is a pre-order. Release Date: September 22, 2026
A roaming journey through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley across time.
From an unlikely band of runaways fleeing slavery, to a fractured family searching for answers amid a climate-ravaged future, Chad B. Anderson’s debut collection entwines short stories with mixed media artworks by Jeffrey D. Guinn. Inspired by the Southern Gothic tradition, We Are All But Fumbling Creatures explores the tangled impacts of history, geography, trauma, and the natural world on who we become and what we pass down.
Guinn’s assemblages – created from wood scraps, dirt, animal bones, and other detritus gathered throughout the Shenandoah Valley – contain their own stories that complement and converse with Anderson’s motifs of haunting echoes, half-buried truths, and the ghosts we carry even if we do not name them.
Part of Burrow Press’ Affordable Collaborative Artist Book Series
| Release Date: Sept. 22 2026 // Short Stories + Visual Art |
| $20 // 6″ x 8″ // Paperback // 186pp // 13 color images |
| ISBN: 978-1-941681-37-4 // Distributed by Asterism Books |
PRAISE FOR FUMBLING CREATURES
“A tender yet fearless excavation of the Shenandoah Valley, We Are All But Fumbling Creatures unearths what its ghosts and myths have long kept buried. I found the vivid yet restrained imagery in these stories to be reminiscent of Edward P Jones’ work, and I finished these pages feeling beautifully unsettled. Through fierce poetic lyricism, Anderson and Guinn craft a haunting call-and-response that leads the reader toward a new kind of awakening.”
–SAMRAT UPADHYAY author of Darkmotherland
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chad B. Anderson has published fiction in Salamander Review, Black Warrior Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Best American Short Stories 2017, Clockhouse, and Burrow Press Review. He curated and edited What’s Mine of Wilderness?, an anthology of poetry, prose, and art, published by Burrow Press in 2023. He has had residencies at the Carolyn Moore Writers House in Portland, Oregon, the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida, and Art Omi: Writers (formerly the Ledig House International Writers’ Colony). He has served as a production editor and a co-managing editor for Callaloo: Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, a guest editor for Burrow Press Review, and an associate fiction editor for Orison Books. Born and raised in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, he earned his B.A. in American Studies and English from the University of Virginia and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Indiana University, where he served as fiction editor for Indiana Review. He lives in Michigan with 33 houseplants and counting.
Jeffrey D. Guinn was born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley. He is a graduate of James Madison University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Graphic Design and a minor in Art History. Following college he worked in secondary education, in the garment industry, and as a visual arts director. He currently co-owns and operates a screen printing shop in Harrisonburg, VA where he resides with his wife, Emily, and their three children. In addition to his work at the shop, he serves on the board of Any Given Child Shenandoah Valley, an arts non-profit that provides arts experiences for K-8 students. He is a fervent advocate of local and public art and music. Much of his free time is spent creating artwork, connecting artists, and facilitating the creative endeavors of others. His inspiration comes from the land and the people around him, as well as the stories and mythologies that shape us.