

Discover an “absurd, funny, and thought-provoking” book perfect for “anyone who has ever felt socially awkward or inadequate” (Louis Sachar, author of Holes and the Wayside School series).Dear weird toes, crooked nose, stressed out, left out, freaked out Dear missing parts, broken hearts, picked-on, passed up, misunderstood, Dear everyone, you are cordially invited, come as you are, this party’s for you Welcome to Pity Party, where the social anxieties that plague us all are twisted into funny, deeply resonant, and ultimately reassuring psychological thrills. There’s a story about a mood ring that tells the absolute truth. One about social media followers who literally follow you around. And one about a kid whose wish for a new, improved self is answered when a mysterious box arrives in the mail. There’s also a personality test, a fortune teller, a letter from the Department of Insecurity, and an interactive Choose Your Own Catastrophe. Come to the party for a grab bag of delightfully dark stories that ultimately offers a life-affirming reminder that there is hope and humor to be found amid our misery.
Inspired by her own experiences with anxiety, and the experiences of young people she met while visiting schools with The Best Worst Thing, Kathleen Lane recently launched Create More, Fear Less (createmorefearless.org)—a workshop and website designed to encourage young people to use the gifts of their anxious minds to take on fear and anxiety. She is currently working on a middle-grade short story collection, and just finished her adult story collection, Deaths I’ve Imagined. Stories from the collection can be found in Los Angeles Review, Baltimore Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Swink Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Forest Avenue Press, and elsewhere. Kathleen lives in Portland, Oregon, where she enjoys nothing more than biking around with her husband and two boys. She is also quite fond of popcorn.
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