In “The Shark Swimmers,” Fraterrigo entangles the reader in a state of suspense and naturalistic doom. She establishes and sustains the perfect balance between revealing and withholding information. Her prose is restrained, tasteful, never showy. Like Upd...

Another world The desire to be a writer has a way of seeping into your soul and never leaving. It dances around and pokes and prods and makes you miserable until you give in and pursue it seriously. This is the experience of Melissa Fraterrigo who, ...

CRITIC'S CHOICE MELISSA FRATERRIGO The 14 wildly inventive stories in Melissa Fraterrigo's new collection, The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press), could be episodes of The Twilight Zone. By turns sweet, sad, twisted, funny, disturbing, and downright...

Dealing with 'what if' scenarios Everyday people inhabit stories written by Melissa Fraterrigo Among the characters inhabiting Melissa Fraterrigo's new collection of short stories are: A family that runs a "swimming with sharks" tourist attrac...

Listen to Melissa’s June 7, 2006 interview with Steve Edwards, host of “Eight Forty-Eight” on Chicago Public Radio’s morning magazine program. Listen Here: http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/848...

The Longest Pregnancy By Melissa Fraterrigo. University of West Alabama Press, $14.95. The titular story of this imaginative collection is about a woman who has been pregnant for six years. Another, called “Wife Swapping with a Giant,” is about exact...

CHICAGO CONNECTIONS Get ready for some laughs on this road trip Evergreen Park writer Melissa Fraterrigo tells fantastical tales where extreme oddities get a few sideways glances but become part of the rhythm of ordinary life. In her collection of sho...

Pregnant Prize Chicago native Melissa Fraterrigo's collection of short stories, "The Longest Pregnancy," was released on April 1 by Livingston Press as the winner of the debut Tartt First Fiction Award. According to Fraterrigo, Livingston's contest was ...

The Longest Pregnancy Contemporary Fiction by Melissa Fraterrigo Swallow's Tale Press, April 2006 SBN: 0930501268 Paperback: 204pp; $14.95 "The shark swimmers’ shows were once a common weekend activity. Before each show, small, dark men in ...

In The Longest Pregnancy, winner of the 2005 Tartt First Fiction Award, Melissa Fraterrigo invites us into a new place: a forgotten country just a few miles off the interstate, a place where the residents can see their way out to the larger world and yet,...

Melissa Fraterrigo is a champion of figurative language in her collection of short stories, The Longest Pregnancy. If you’ve ever needed an example of how writing is truly an art, this book answers the call. Fraterrigo uses language in fresh and innovativ...