Dionne Irving is the author of the novel Quint. Her work has appeared in Story, Boulevard, Missouri Review, New Delta Review, and on Literary Hub, among other print and online journals and magazines. She teaches in the creative writing program and the Initiative on Race and Resilience at the University of Notre Dame. In The Islands: Stories (Catapult), Irving looks at the history and condition of Jamaican women in locations and times ranging from 1950s London and 1960s Panama to modern-day New Jersey. She follows the lives of these women – immigrants or the descendants of immigrants – who chose to move to escape the ghosts of colonialism on what they call “the Island.” It’s an unsettled cast of characters. In one story, a woman and her husband impulsively leave San Francisco and move to Florida with wild dreams of American reinvention, only to reveal the cracks in their marriage. In another, the sole Jamaican mother at a prep school feels pressure to volunteer for its International Day event. In a third, a travel writer connects with the mother who once abandoned her. Restless, displaced, and disconnected, these characters try to ground themselves and grow roots wherever they find themselves.
