J.A. Grante
Fiction about people who mess up, carry on, and sometimes come back.
I write stories about people at awkward crossroads—the kind you only recognize in hindsight. Some stories are set in small towns, some far away. Some don’t really have a setting at all.There’s often something unspoken. A missed chance. A small mercy.I post pieces when they’re ready. If you’re the kind of reader who likes to linger, you’re in the right place.
Read
The End of The Drought
It was the only well in the village. Aida stood looking at the shimmering queue. Desert winds had blasted hills into non-existence. The dry riverbed she stood on with her sister as they carried their empty containers was an endless tract of cracked mud turned to rock.Up ahead were the militia. Men dressed in singlets, wearing caps, their shapes morphing under the heat, their father’s killers, murderers of the village chief, and these were his daughters, they must not be caught.
The Cellist
The last notes of a Bach fugue. Sounds from a string quartet floating in the late afternoon, escaping through opera house walls. Granite steps lead to the recital hall inside, where, under sail-like roofs, Clare closes her book of sheet music and glances at the conductor, a night of secrets and mystery lay ahead, and Clare was the best keeper of secrets she knew.Echoes of instrument cases snapping shut. Clare lifted the body of the cello in its case and laid it with its strap against one of the chairs.
Starman
Alice never really believed in them. Not really. Those stained-glass images in the church windows were yellow and green and red and brilliant some days, but they weren’t real. The visitor in the bathroom was real. Dickybird was real. Dickybird was the real McCoy.
Right. Finish makeup. What was the time? She brushed on mascara and stepped back for a better view. Perfect — well, as good as she could get it, anyway. The visitor was right there in the other room, cleaning his teeth, cleaning his bloody teeth — did those fellas even have teeth? What would they eat?
Beyond this page
All of the pieces here are part of complete stories. A few are part of something longer. I share what feels ready—without a schedule, and without much noise.If you’d like to read more as it arrives, you can subscribe below. No pressure, no pitch.
Echoes
If you sense echoes, you’re not wrong.
Writers like Elizabeth Strout, George Saunders, Lauren Groff, J.M. Coetzee, and Sigrid Nunez remind me what fiction can hold.I don’t write like them. But their work leaves traces.