I’m truly honored to feature Zen, a short story by Kevin Light-Roth. It’s the first original short story published on Turn & Work.
I first read Kevin’s writing on The Small Bow. His piece about the effects of long-term solitary confinement was unforgettable, and I shared the link as widely as I could.
A couple days later I received an email from a family member of his, asking if I’d like to speak to him directly. He’s a staunch advocate for justice system reform, and I get the idea that he jumps at any chance to grow his reach. He had some ideas about how we might work together. I jumped at the opportunity.
Kevin is incarcerated in Washington state. He’s been in prison for 22 years, completing his sentence for something he did when he was 19 years old. His time is coming to an end
We spoke over a terrible phone connection for about half an hour. Kevin told me about his location and sentence, and the organizations he has worked with. I’m Canadian and almost everything I know about the US prison system comes from movies and TV, so this was a real education.
Kevin has published nonfiction pieces widely, about justice system reform, the inhumanity of solitary confinement and education in the prison system, among others. You can find him on X, though he tells me he’ll be on Bluesky soon.
This is the first time his fiction has been published.
Zen is the story of Jeremy Maranville (though we don’t learn his name for a while), whose mother Brandy is on the lam. When a couple of bounty hunters come around looking for her and repossess his truck as collateral for her skipping bail, he goes looking for her.
It’s a gritty and fast-paced story with characters and dialogue that evoke Elmore Leonard’s — grim settings with seedy characters speaking in snappy bursts, quick and propulsive banter.
What a privilege it is to share this with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
