"How well do we know the people we love? This question is at the heart of Kris Faatz's beautifully written first novel. With Sam and Jeannette, Faatz has created two sympathetic, deeply flawed characters, driven by loneliness and a desire to belong. Set in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, their story unfolds with tragic inevitability. Compassionate and emotionally engaging, To Love A Stranger is a page-turner, a story that will resonate with the reader for a long time to come." - Geeta Kothari, author of I Brake For Moose and Other Stories

"Readers are safe in this author's thoughtful hands, amidst these gorgeous words, in this world rich with the heady sounds of darkness, honesty, forgiveness. To Love A Stranger is written with the harmony of humanity in mind. To Love A Stranger is a song." - Leesa Cross-Smith, author of Whiskey and Ribbons

"Artfully plotted, elegant and sharply observed, the book has the effect of holding you in proximity to two deeply flawed characters as they advance grudgingly and by degrees toward acceptance of who they are and where they come from. The novel has the grace to allow its characters to come to terms with what they're trying to escape, and it accomplishes this without sentimentality." - Tom Andes, interviewer, JMWW Magazine

Many of my stories are inspired or informed by music or art. Many of them also deal with relationships between people, and the underlying deeper societal and/or cultural issues that can emerge in such relationships, or inform them.

This project contains a cross-section of my short fiction. All of these pieces have been published in literary journals, as noted in the individual files.

In January 2017, I also put together a chapbook of six of my stories and published it for Kindle. This collection, Unraveled Souls, was my response to the inauguration and my concern for what lay ahead for our country. Half of all proceeds benefit 826 National (826national.org), an organization which supports literacy and creativity for young under-served students.
(Unraveled Souls is available to order at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ8IT2W?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660.)

More information about my short fiction can be found on my website: https://krisfaatz.com/stories. 

My blog feature "Storytelling and Sound" combines verbal and musical storytelling. It came out of a collaboration at the 2017 Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, in which fellow novelist Taylor Larsen and I presented an afternoon program for the students and faculty. Taylor read excerpts of her novel STRANGER, FATHER, BELOVED, and I interspersed her readings with musical interludes to complement the writing.

The program was a huge success and I wanted to do more with this combination of arts. For my blog, I make videos in which I read excerpts of fiction and poetry (in a few cases it's my own work, but more often, I share the work of other writers) and alternate the readings with short piano works. This combination of music and words seems to be a treat for listeners, and the writers I've hosted have loved hearing their work presented in this new way. I'm looking forward to continuing this project through the coming year.