Tira Palmquist

It’s winter, for now. And Billie Peterson is in Minnesota, again, for now. Though she’s not “home,” No, she’s here as a journalist, to report on a hearty band of scientists as they gather data on Lake Superior, and she’s coming to terms with the fact that not even the coldest, deepest, largest lake in North America is immune from the effects of climate change. More importantly, the lake is reminding Billie that maybe loving a place requires more from her, maybe requires more from all of us.

We all think we know the story of Margaret through Shakespeare’s history cycle. But was she really a “ruthless queen,” a “she-wolf of France?” King Margaret challenges that narrative and brings in the stories of the real Margaret, known for being quick, bright, capable, and strong-willed—her only faults being that she was fifteen, and French, and female.

What does it mean to be lost in America? Anne and her husband David are about to find out. Determined to put a troubling diagnosis in the rearview mirror, they set off on the perfect American road trip with a plan, a destination, an impressive list of cool spots to stop along the way and a timeline that should put them in St. Paul just in time for the birth of their first grandchild. But what if this perfect plan is merely a distraction from the complicated, ridiculous, occasionally breathtaking and often far messier journey they’d hoped to avoid? Bearing witness to the beauty of things, even as they disappear, Anne and David struggle to come to terms with the unexpected and unavoidable journey of their lives.​

When a lost, cold and very pregnant young woman stumbles on to her rural homestead in the Minnesota wilderness, Freddy Hanson doesn't hesitate to take her in. It's the right thing to do, and as the county's former Sheriff, Freddy has dedicated her life to protecting and serving others. But when her new guest turns out to be a Sudanese refugee making a run for the Canadian border, what it means to protect and serve becomes a more complicated, and far more dangerous, question.

In a house in Inglewood, Boots and her housemates – Gael, Kense, Mo, Cruz – are fulfilling their most radical goals: growing their own food, practicing more sustainable living, carving out a life for themselves, for their future. They’ve just taken on a new housemate, Wren, even though their former housemate Finley is desperate to come back into the fold. But their whole enterprise is endangered when their property manager, Vic brings bad news about a new owner of their house, and forces beyond their control threaten both where and how they’ll live.

What Sasha Jones wants more than anything else is to have her mother back -- or maybe just to go to the mall. Mikayla Reese wants, someday, to go to space. Or maybe a home to call her own. But they can't have those things -- not now, not ever. Still, clinging to the impossible as they find themselves in increasingly dangerous circumstances, they have to make increasingly desperate choices, or face increasingly treacherous consequences. All they want is a safe harbor -- but the road there seems both long and difficult.

It's the weekend of a high school ten-year reunion, and a group of friends gathers. But it's hard to feel like there's much to celebrate when they're saddled with debt, concerned about their current choices, worried about their future. Seeing their friends reminds them who they thought they'd be, and how far they have to go to get there.

Emma Phelps is a paleoclimatologist, focusing on ice in Greenland. In drilling and studying ice core samples, she sees first hand the symptoms of our changing planet, which makes the need to act all the more crucial and urgent. In addition to her growing sense of urgency for the planet, Emma, as a recent widow, experiences grief that compounds itself with each passing month. Now she's been asked to come to Washington D.C. to testify in a Senate Committee regarding climate change legislation, and in this intersection of science and politics, of politics and the personal, she finds more than just a little is breaking up under the strain of change.

When a woman of means crashes her car in a no-man’s land, she finds herself on a long, strange trip home. Wasn’t she always lucky? Didn’t she always know how to make her way in the world? But this place is bewildering, and, weirdly, there’s a creature who seems to understand her better than the humans. There, on the margins of here and there, between suburbia and wilderness, she meets a Curandera and desperately clings to the things that seem to be slipping away from her. Or, maybe, it’s all already gone, and she just couldn’t see it.

After Grandpa Gunnar's funeral, Carl is convinced that there's an inheritance hidden in the boxes and detritus in Gunnar's house. To Gunnar's daughter, Nan, there's nothing of value in the house -- nothing of value in Gunnar's legacy, nothing to inherit but grief and sorrow. As they sort through the house, Carl learns how true that is.

Jordan Matthews would be fine, if her mother could hold down a decent job, or if her mother hadn't been arrested on another DUI, or if her mother's boyfriend wasn't a skeevy bastard. But things aren't fine, Jordan's life teeters on the edge, and all the adults around her are either impotent or uninterested. So Jordan begins to wonder if it’s unusual for terrible things to happen, and never know why. For terrible things to happen, and not have anyone really care.

Maggie should have known it was a fool’s errand to return to Ten Mile Lake; after all, if her father had wanted her to know he was dying, he would have called her himself. It would be easy to just turn around and head back to Portland, especially since he seems to get along better with his new nurse Donny than he ever did with her. But, now that she's home, Maggie can’t seem to leave, and maybe… just maybe she doesn’t really want to.

The bees have gone, and the world struggles to keep up with the resulting ecological and economic changes. In the midst of this, we meet Mel, a young woman who has found sanctuary on an agricultural compound, where there's food and safety. She works alongside other girls, also orphans or castoffs. Sarah and Zed, who run the farm, hope that their next child will be a boy; Sarah is at the end of her fertility, however, and, to her dismay, Mel stands next in line to carry children for Zed. Into this uncertain sanctuary steps Jonathan, an independent field researcher who collects samples of plants to forestall additional ecological devastation. Meeting Mel provides a glimmer of other kinds of scientific riches on this compound, and he is determined to take her with him. Zed's history of violence makes any escape a dangerous proposition. Still, there's the hope that something new can grow, that something good can come from the ruined world they struggle to make theirs.

Benny Gutierrez is trying to grow up. While in custody for statutory rape, Benny was seriously wounded by the Sheriff's deputies. Now - free on a plea agreement, with a monetary settlement, Benny moves to Hemet, where at least he can look at the stars.

Still, he's tons of baggage, such as his resentment toward his brother, who didn't bail him out of jail. Benny is looking for his place in the world - and in his need to know his fate, he unintentionally revives the ghost of Tycho Brahe, who seems just as perplexed by the universe as Benny.

Elle is a struggling singer-songwriter in California. Rebecca is an unhappy homemaker in Wisconsin. And Ethel is bringing her daughters together for her 70th birthday to be momentary mermaids in the springs of Weeki Wachee. But as the fantasy dissipates, will they be able to swim back to shore?