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Santa Fe: The Good Stuff
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“Wildly imaginative and gorgeously moving.”
―Anne Valente, author of Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down
“Sustained and powerful, a clear-eyed grief leavened by a mad hope.”
―Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Ghost Variations
“Klagmann captures the beauty and largeness of nature and our tenuous place in the world.”
―David Nikki Crouse, author of Copy Cats and The Man Back There
Photo: Josh Bryant
JESSICA BRYANT KLAGMANN studied writing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Every good idea she’s ever had came while running, so she tries to stay within sight of a mountain or canyon trail at all times. She and her family live in northern New Mexico, but they also spend time in Maine, where they’re restoring the trees of a hundred-acre forest. Her work has been published in environmental journals like Whitefish Review, Terrain.org, and others.
Her debut novel, THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS, was out on February 1, 2024. Her second novel will be published in fall 2025.
Extended bio can be found here.
About THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS
After the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, Alma Hughes moves to a remote island in the North Atlantic, where she hopes to weather her grief and nurture her ailing dog. But the strange town of Violette has mysteries as well.
A radio tower overlooking the town broadcasts messages through the residents’ home appliances, their dreams, even the sea itself. When lightning strikes the tower, illuminating the sky in a brilliant flash, Alma finds herself caught in the unexplainable aftermath of one of Violette’s deadliest storms.
As the sea consumes the island, threatening its very existence, the deaths and lost memories of the recently departed also devastate the community. Alma, with a unique link to the lost, may be the only one who can help them move on. But to do so, she must confront a tragic loss of her own.
THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS asks the question: what is a story without someone to listen to it? At its heart, this is a novel about listening—to ourselves, to others, to nature, to our planet, to the ones we’ve lost who continue to follow us throughout our lives. It’s about having the courage to hear the echoes of the past and to see them for what they are: monuments with the potential to guide and transform us.
