The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of fiction! We’re joined by author James R. Gapinski for a discussion of their award-winning debut story collection, The Museum of Future Mistakes. James is in conversation with Zach Powers, novelist and Executive & Artistic Director at The Writer’s Center.
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James R. Gapinski (they/them) is the author of the novella Edge of the Known Bus Line—winner of the 2018 Etchings Press Novella Prize, named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2018, and a finalist for the 2019 Montaigne Medal. James is also the author of three fiction chapbooks, and their short work has appeared in the Best Microfiction 2023 anthology, HAD, Heavy Feather Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Variant Literature, and other publications. The Museum of Future Mistakes (BOA Editions 2025) is their first full length collection. Gapinski lives in Portland OR.
About The Museum of Future Mistakes
Gruesome scenarios take a tender turn; beautiful moments become sources of derision. Winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize, The Museum of Future Mistakes is packed with inventive narrative choices and sharp lyricism, upending expectations on every page.
In “Brother and Not-Brother,” the residents of an entire city transform into perfect copies of the narrator’s deceased brother, sparking meditations on childhood scars, grief, and how painful memories can bloom into joy, laughter, and love. In “The Last Dinosaurs of Portland,” two anthropomorphic dinosaurs yearn for companionship and empathy while fighting for a meager existence under the weight of past traumas. In “Three-Month Autopsy,” a character visits ex-lovers and returns Ziploc baggies full of their body parts, exploring infatuation, jealousy, regret, and the contours of both giving and receiving in a relationship.
Through these and other fabulist and magical realist stories, James R. Gapinski considers our physical relationship with our own bodies, how we process love and loss, and the fragility of identity amid moments of personal crisis. With elements of the grotesque and the surreal, fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link will find much to admire in this award-winning collection.
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