At age 18 Alysia Sawchyn was diagnosed with bipolar I. Seven years later she learned she had been misdiagnosed. A Fish Growing Lungs takes the form of linked essays that reflect on Sawchyn’s diagnosis and its unraveling, the process of withdrawal and recovery, and the search for identity as she emerges from a difficult past into a cautiously hopeful present.The housewives that populate Second Wife are estranged from themselves and others. They mourn lost children, plot revenge against their former husbands, lust after the bag boy at the grocery store, seek marital advice from a psychic, and regret the emptiness of an affair. In this collection of linked flash fiction, Flannery O’Connor Award-winning author Rita Ciresi offers a peek into the private thoughts of ordinary women with cutting precision.