In AFK, a young adult drama by Jamie Zerndt, Atsuko and Lyric are best friends who love to surf and play video games to keep their minds off their personal issues at home. While Lyric deals with the divorce of his parents and his complicated...

While set at the foot of the Rockies in the towns of Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado, the style, themes, and prose of James Zerndt’s Brailling For Wile places it alongside the work of other literary “Midwestern” writers such as Kent Haruf and Richard Russo....