Italo Calvino wrote, “Only a certain prosaic solidity can give birth to creativity:  fantasy is like jam; you have to spread it on a solid slice of bread.  If not, it remains a shapeless thing, like jam, out of which you can’t make anything.” Jam on Bread takes Calvino seriously.

As I worked on the stories for this collection, I became increasingly drawn to dream fantasies and horrors, and questions of “what if?” Ultimately, Jam on Bread grew out of my fascinations as I sought to explore the possibilities of the fantastic within the short story. These stories do not surrender form to content but seek that ideal mix of jam and bread where the jam is not sloppy and the bread is not dry.

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Jam on Bread combines work from my MFA thesis from the University of Notre Dame with more recent stories, an eclectic collection of work glued together with a unifying smear of jam. 

Several stories from this collection have been published over the years, including “Slug Spanker,” “Avocado,” and “Mashed Potatoes, No Gravy.” Unfortunately, as is the nature of online publishing, a number have disappeared over the years. “Of Roaring and Wonder Bread” is one that remains.