The Earth Room

The Earth Room is wonderful, fantastical, warm and searching. The characters roam worlds that are strange mirrors of our own. Through Diehl’s sublime world-building we discover the magic behind every item and instance we had once thought common and straightforward. Reading through these surprising twists and perfect turns was pure delight, like drinking a perfectly sweetened cup of black tea with milk. This is my favorite kind of book. Both inspired and inspiring. I loved it.

—Diane Cook, author of The New Wilderness

I was impressed by how often the stories in Diehl’s The Earth Room surprised me with their mix of reality and fabulism. There’s something for everyone in this collection: wolves, motherhood, romance, daughterhood, witches, vampire boyfriends, and Stardew Valley. This book is a spring morning filled with blooming buds and unusual fungi and longing.

—Megan Giddings, author of The Women Could Fly

The Earth Room is a revelation! Deftly straddling the human and the fantastical, this collection delights with its elegance and insight, and also with its many surprises. From rogue teeth to inexplicable disappearances, glaciers to underground tunnels, Dana Diehl’s fiction explores the many mysteries of existence, reminding us how much we have yet to discover in the world around us—as well as in our own hearts.

—Allegra Hyde, author of The Last Catastrophe

These surreal tales bubble with ghost babies and shed skins and long legends, with people who aren’t quite people and those who are much more than people, hungry for meanings and connection and sometimes something more sinister. I loved the space I got to live in for a while reading this book.

—Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You