Alison Stine

After her father has a premonition, Thea, her parents, and her little sister move to the Bloodless Valley of southern Colorado, hoping to make a fresh start. On their remote farm, they will “unschool”: take nature hikes, help with the animals, and learn outside. But soon her parents don’t have time to teach the girls, and forbid Thea and her sister from going to the library, not wanting to “poison” them with the internet or books. Thea learns the reason her parents could afford to buy land—sight unseen—is because nothing will grow without a fight. To make ends meet, her parents let her work at the café in town, and there she meets Ray, who is deaf and spends summers in the valley. Thea was born partially deaf, but all her family is hearing, and her father has always told her she needs to just be like everyone else, to pass and pretend. But Ray—the first other deaf teen Thea has ever met—knows how to sign. When he starts teaching Thea in secret, she begins to learn what she has been missing, not only language but community. Thea begins spending her days with Ray, going deep into the valley to meet its other residents, artists and outcasts—and it is there that she connects the Dust Bowl from history and warnings from scientists with the weather she’s living through. The days are hotter than ever. The river is drying up, crops are dying. History may be repeating itself, as the black blizzards of Colorado have returned. And her father isn’t the only one who has dreams.

A resonant, visionary novel about the power of art and the sacrifices we are willing to make for the ones we love A few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: garbage is currency. In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a "plucker," pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She's stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor. Amid the polluted landscape, Coral works desperately to save up enough to rescue her child from the recycling factories, where he is forced to work. In her stolen free hours, she does something that seems impossible in this place: Coral makes art. When a reporter from a struggling city on the coast arrives in Trashlands, Coral is presented with an opportunity to change her life. But is it possible to choose a future for herself? Told in shifting perspectives, Trashlands is a beautifully drawn and wildly imaginative tale of a parent's journey, a story of community and humanity in a changed world. "A harrowing vision of the future, and at its center is the tug-of-war between what is right and what is necessary to survive. This thought-provoking apocalypse noir fires on all cylinders." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

For fans of Lidia Yuknavitch and Ling Ma, Trashlands is a gripping and wildly imaginative literary speculative novel about a woman searching for her son, and for meaning through the impossible task of creating art in a world that doesn't value it, in a near-future setting where climate has changed the geography and plastic is currency.In the region-wide junkyard in the remote mountains of what was once Appalachia, Coral lives and works in a group of migrant workers called pluckers, because they pluck plastic--one of the nation's primary currencies now--from rivers and fields to sell or trade. Along with her partner, a tattoo artist named Trillium, Coral lives in an old school bus at Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at the edge of the junkyard, whose neon sign casts a pink glow over everything and whose owner rules as unofficial mayor. Many of the local women are also dancers at the club, though Coral has always resisted that particular path.Coral spends her days fishing out plastic to sell, in a seemingly impossible bid to save enough to rescue her son from the recycling factories. He was kidnapped by child labor traffickers seven years ago, and Coral has been stuck at Trashlands ever since. She spends her precious spare hours creating art pieces from some of the refuse: sculptures that she leaves anonymously in the woods.A reporter named Miami arrives from the elite coastal cities, and he promises to pay Coral to be his guide to the area. What Coral and Miami don't count on is falling in love. Coral has a choice, for maybe the first time in her difficult life, to stay or to strike out with Miami for the cities on the coast. It could mean more opportunities for safety, for food, for work. It could mean a chance to practice the art that has always called to Coral. But it would mean leaving the only family she's every known--and it would mean her son wouldn't know where to find her, should he finally escape.When an infection caused by a random, stupid injury uses up all of Coral's hard-won savings, Coral is faced with an unhappy proposition: if she dances at Trashlands, the owner will pay her everything she needs.Told in multiple, alternating perspectives, Trashlands is a love story to survival in an unloved place, a testament to the enduring powers of art and resistance, and a tale of one mother's strength to overcome the unbearable.

For fans of Lidia Yuknavitch and Ling Ma, Trashlands is a gripping and wildly imaginative literary speculative novel about a woman searching for her son, and for meaning through the impossible task of creating art in a world that doesn't value it, in a near-future setting where climate has changed the geography and plastic is currency.In the region-wide junkyard in the remote mountains of what was once Appalachia, Coral lives and works in a group of migrant workers called pluckers, because they pluck plastic--one of the nation's primary currencies now--from rivers and fields to sell or trade. Along with her partner, a tattoo artist named Trillium, Coral lives in an old school bus at Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at the edge of the junkyard, whose neon sign casts a pink glow over everything and whose owner rules as unofficial mayor. Many of the local women are also dancers at the club, though Coral has always resisted that particular path.Coral spends her days fishing out plastic to sell, in a seemingly impossible bid to save enough to rescue her son from the recycling factories. He was kidnapped by child labor traffickers seven years ago, and Coral has been stuck at Trashlands ever since. She spends her precious spare hours creating art pieces from some of the refuse: sculptures that she leaves anonymously in the woods.A reporter named Miami arrives from the elite coastal cities, and he promises to pay Coral to be his guide to the area. What Coral and Miami don't count on is falling in love. Coral has a choice, for maybe the first time in her difficult life, to stay or to strike out with Miami for the cities on the coast. It could mean more opportunities for safety, for food, for work. It could mean a chance to practice the art that has always called to Coral. But it would mean leaving the only family she's every known--and it would mean her son wouldn't know where to find her, should he finally escape.When an infection caused by a random, stupid injury uses up all of Coral's hard-won savings, Coral is faced with an unhappy proposition: if she dances at Trashlands, the owner will pay her everything she needs.Told in multiple, alternating perspectives, Trashlands is a love story to survival in an unloved place, a testament to the enduring powers of art and resistance, and a tale of one mother's strength to overcome the unbearable.

"This thought-provoking apocalypse noir fires on all cylinders." -Publishers Weekly starred reviewFrom the author of Road Out of Winter, winner of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award, comes a resonant, visionary novel about the power of art and the sacrifices we are willing to make for the ones we loveA few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: garbage is currency.In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a "plucker," pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She's stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor.Amid the polluted landscape, Coral works desperately to save up enough to rescue her child from the recycling factories, where he is forced to work. In her stolen free hours, she does something that seems impossible in this place: Coral makes art.When a reporter from a struggling city on the coast arrives in Trashlands, Coral is presented with an opportunity to change her life. But is it possible to choose a future for herself?Told in shifting perspectives, Trashlands is a beautifully drawn and wildly imaginative tale of a parent's journey, a story of community and humanity in a changed world."A harrowing tale that is a natural extension of our current climate crisis.... Highly recommended." -Booklist, starred review

2021 winner of the Philip K. Dick Award forA 2020 The Rumpus Book Club Selection"Blends a rural thriller and speculative realism into what could be called dystopian noir.... Profoundly moving."--Library Journal, starred reviewIn an endless winter, she carries seeds of hopeWylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty--her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she's been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn't return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented, extreme winter.With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wil and her small group of exiles become a target for the cult's volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future, with a chosen family forged in the face of dystopian collapse. Both gripping and lyrical, Stine's vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for where hope might take root."Richly imagined, deeply moving and unthinkably offers hope in a world that uncannily resembles ours.... Gloriously well-written." --Ms. Magazine

Something is wrong with Esmé. Kicked out of school in New York, her sister sends her to live with their grandmother in the small town she hasn’t visited since she was a child. But something is wrong with the grandmother Ez hasn’t seen for years; she leaves the house at midnight, carrying a big black bag. Something is wrong with her grandmother’s house, a decrepit mansion full of stray cats, stairs that lead to nowhere and beds that unmake themselves. Something is wrong in the town where a child disappears every year, where a whistle sounds at night but no train arrives. And something is definitely wrong with her cute and friendly neighbour with black curls and ice-blue eyes: he’s dead.

In a small town under a spell, a child bride prays for the sheriff's gun. Iron under a bed stops a nightmare. The carousel artist can carve only birds. Part fairy tale and part gothic ballad, Wait spans a single year: the year before a young woman's marriage. Someone is always watching--from the warehouse, from the woods. And on the outskirts of town, someone new is waiting.