?These clear-eyed, daring, delicate, and deeply organic stories hum with animal vitality: dogs and snakes, gunplay and witchcraft, music and tornadoes. R. M. Kinder has a fearless heart; she approaches the human condition without preconceptions, and the result is a collection of startling wisdom and piercing beauty.? ?Trudy Lewis, author of The Empire Rolls
"An inherently absorbing, impressively original, and memorably written compendium of short stories by an exceptionally talented author." ?Midwest Book Review
"R. M. Kinder may be a modern-day Katherine Anne Porter with a vein of Flannery O?Connor darkness squiggling throughout, but she puts me most in mind of Lucia Berlin in sensibility and droll intelligence. Kinder manages to bolster our hope for humanity, even as she doesn?t flinch from the hard face of twenty-first-century reality. A Common Person and Other Stories is full of heart, generosity, and absolutely stunning writing." ?Karen Brennan, author of Monsters
"Kinder from everyday life forges sincere, powerful revelations about what goes into being human, sometimes in glory and sometimes in shame, and told always with a genius for emotional honesty that eschews the maudlin in favor of the real." ?Richmond News
"The third illuminating collection of short fiction from R.M. Kinder thoughtfully explores how people are shaped by simple heroism and fateful encounters." ?Shelf Awareness
?A Common Person is a skillfully touching collection of stories by Missouri writer R. M. Kinder.? ?St. Louis Post-Dispatch
?Even in the darker stories, R. M. Kinder?s trademark strengths can be found in abundance: narratives that unfold with ease and end at exactly the right moment, spot-on dialogue, a keen eye for the emotional landscape and generosity of heart. Like all fine story writers?from Mansfield to Munro?Kinder knows, from the writer?s perspective, there is no such thing as an unremarkable life.? ?Catherine Browder, author of Now We Can All Go Home
?Known as a regionalist, a rural writer, and a realist . . . most of [Kinder?s] stories are about the struggles of ordinary people. . . . Some of [the stories] are light, all of them have a serious thread, and every one of them is about working-class, brave people making their life with honor and nobility.? ?Sedalia Democrat
"Reading an R. M. Kinder story is like plunging your face into a clear, cold, spring-fed stream. Everything is changed, refreshed, and revelatory. Her beautiful new collection, A Common Person and Other Stories, is a constant, thrilling reminder of the magic and power that resides in the people?and the animals?that surround us every day." ?Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant
