Split by Heidi Kasa
Monday Night Press is pleased to present a fiction chapbook by Heidi Kasa. Split is a story about the constancy of change, the inevitability of disruption, the roles that humans play as creators and destroyers in each other’s lives. Through inventive structure and language, Kasa pushes her characters through painful transformations that are told in personal, philosophical, and cosmic dimensions.
An excerpt from Split was published in the fall 2021 issue of Monday Night literary journal.
Price: US $10+S&H
Praise for Split
“In Heidi Kasa’s brilliant and surprising story Split, the Now is a character intervening in the lives of a couple, Amy and Dan, and in all of our lives: ‘The Now is a grid—invisible and connective. Some things slip through the Now. These things are called the Past and the Future. Both are sort of important, but not to the Now.’ With shifting point of views and narrative styles, Kasa chronicles a sad split between the long-term couple and the turmoil of the human heart. But she places her story in the larger perspective of the past, present, and future and how they relate to each other and to us. Her writing is lyrical and precise, and one of her most startling and successful approaches is having the characters see each other and themselves in terms of the techniques of their arts: photography, film, and music. Split is an absorbing and thought-provoking work and is unlike any other.”
— Judith Serin, author of Gravity and Hiding in the World
“Conjuring DeLillo in its cool gaze and Kundera in its gestural characterization, Kasa’s Split inspires in the reader a host of thematic considerations—love, power, time—with a deliberate hand and a deliciously subtle smirk. Warning: do not read this if you are questioning your relationship. Or: maybe that’s exactly why you should read it. This is wonderful and unique storytelling.”
— Miah Jeffra, author of The Violence Almanac and The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic!
“Heidi Kasa cannot escape her poet self, her philosopher self, her human self. Is she Amy? Is she Dan? Is she the SLR camera–a throwback? In her work Heidi refuses to be limited, refuses to have her square edges rounded or her round swells squared. Her work seems to scream: I am here! You are here! We are here! Let us all BE in our complexity and do so freely!”
— T.A. Niles, writer
Read T.A. Niles’ full review here.
Heidi Kasa writes fiction and poetry. Her work has been a finalist for a Black Lawrence Press award, shortlisted for a Fractured Lit award, and sold at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. Kasa’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Racket, Meat for Tea, The Raw Art Review, and Ab Terra, among others. She edits nonfiction, sells handcrafted necklaces, and is learning how to take good care of native Texas flowers and plants. Check out more of her writing at www.heidikasa.com. She currently lives in Austin.