In her debut short story collection, Quednau offers unsettling examinations of “what really happened” with rich, complex characters that might equally arouse our suspicions or sympathy: we pay attention. She gives voice to the interludes between actions, what almost occurred, or might yet, the skewed time of “before” and acute reckoning of “afterward.” Seemingly innocent gestures leave their marks in comeuppance: the blurt of an intimate nickname becoming an ad hoc striptease in a public place, a parked car leading to a woman flailing in a dunk tank, a garage sale with no early birds ending in vengeance, the redemptive act of shucking corn with an ex-husband’s new lover transforming into greater loss. These stories attest to Quednau’s belief that the most significant moments in our lives—the things that alter us—lie in the margins, just out of sight of what was once presumed or predicted. In these short fictions timing is everything, the rusted twentieth-century myths of ownership or conquest are set against the incoming reality of pandemic, our separate notions of love or of courage, of painful transformation, yet to be believed.

A concealment of any kind by our government to keep secrets of their criminal activities must not be tolerated especially when the government, in this case the municipality of the City of Atlanta trespasses on private properties and illegally dumps for years their hazardous waste. If they will do this, how can we the public, trust them with our drinking water?? 100% transparency is required! I've inscribed these pages after a number of alarming experiences dating back to the mid-1960s through present day. Imagine, all three levels of government have been and are allowing the ongoing concealment of a deeply massive hazardous illegal dumpsite. This site created by a dominant municipality, whose authoritative power extends throughout the entire Southeastern section of the USA. From 1960s through 2000, this city's illegal trespassed entirely upon private properties of low-income blacks who lived adjacent the notorious all-black Perry Homes Housing Project. This city disposed more than three hundred thousand cubic yards of hazardous waste there. To make matters worse, the city zealously concealed and deceived every effort to expose their illegal activities for more than two decades to present day. My efforts and litigation's have been relentlessly thwarted for years, due to the city's predominant goal to obtain the last parcel of land they disposed waste thereon, which unfortunately I still own. The City of Atlanta's law department and Public Works department deceptive method of condemning only my four properties has left me no other choice but to write this book. Public safety and health concerns have yet to be considered by any government, concerning this illegal dumpsite, consistently releases contamination into the air and directly into state and national waterways. My eight years of investigations reveal extensive ongoing damage to the public and environment. The publication of these facts will give insight into the evidence that our government doesn't want revealed. Ultimately, there is no such law on the books that address a rogue government agency; therefore, we as citizens in the USA, are left helpless to concealment consequences of a never-ending contamination source affecting a minimum of three states and the Gulf of Mexico. This book aspired me to create the movement called Our Public Trust (OurPublictrust.com). We must unite globally to speak up and DEMAND TRANSPARENCY WHEN IT COMES TO OUR PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY! May God protect us!