How Winter Began

Joy Castro is a professor of both English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is the author of two thrillers: Hell or High Water, winner of the 2013 Nebraska Book Award and the National Latino Book Club's book of the month selection; and Nearer Home. She is also the author of such acclaimed nonfiction as Island of Bones: Essays and The Truth Book: A Memoir, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.

• A Notion I TookHow to Warp Your KidOther Women’s JewelsGiving Jewel AwayTo Practice the ThingLiking It RoughMusingIndependence DayA Time of SnowThe Small HeartBloodyA Place I Shouldn’t GoThe NorenThe TastingA Favor I DidHow Winter BeganUnder ThingsWhore for a DayThe Pottery Barn and the Foster ChildThe CaveThe Dream of the FatherRuthlessPersonal EffectsAll the Time in the WorldA Mother Who Means Well Is Harder to LoseDinnerThe RiverA Choice I MadeGratitude

"To read Joy Castro's stories is to witness the world as beautiful and horrible, light and dark, and to see people who are both lovely and ugly. Joy Castro will hold your heart."-NatalieSypolt, Los Angeles Review "With these stories, Castro lulls the reader with beautiful, exquisitely crafted sentences. But before we realize it, she reveals the dark contours of her characters’ lives-lives that are often desperate and broken, but not without hope for something better."-Daniel A. Olivas, El Paso Times "These stories by Joy Castro ask us to notice the invisible: a small boy, the "girl" polishing our silver, the older woman hosting the meeting."-Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Star Tribune “Joy Castro’s writing is like watching an Acapulco cliff diver. It takes my breath away every time.”-Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street “I love the stories in How Winter Began: the taut narratives, the deft portrayal of characters who, though vulnerable, are stunning in their fierce determination. Reading, I had very physical reactions-sharp intakes of breath, stinging eyes, tightening scalp, adrenaline. It was like being gut-punched again and again, but in a very good way.”-Lorraine LÓpez, author of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories