Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Nino Cipri | FINNA
Author Guest / March 5, 2020

I got my first job at eleven, working at a doggy daycare, and I’ve been more-or-less continuously employed since then. Now, at age 34, my full work history is long and weird: server, gas station attendant, construction worker, theater set builder, house cleaner, bookseller, landscaper, bike mechanic, teacher, freelance writer, and editor. A lot of this work brought me joy, particularly when I was lucky enough to have great coworkers, or supervisors who invested in their teams. I’ve also seen firsthand the ways employers can exploit, belittle, and manipulate their workers. I poured years of frustration into my novella, FINNA. FINNA begins in an enormous homegoods store where, thanks to the uniquely awful corporate layout, reality has a tendency to tear doorways into other worlds. When an elderly customer wanders into a wormhole in a furniture showroom, the task of tracking her down falls to Jules and Ava, the workers with the least seniority. (There used to be a specialized division that handled these cases, but they were cut during the Recession.) Navigating a series of hostile, alien worlds would be hard enough, but Ava and Jules broke up three days ago. Before you ask: no, there’s no overtime (unless…