The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

GINA OCHSNER is the author of two collections of short stories, People I Wanted to Be and The Necessary Grace to Fall , both of which won the Oregon Book Award, and a novel, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight , which was longslisted for the Orange Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Best American Nonrequired Reading . She is a recipient of the Flannery O'Connor Award, an NEA grant, a Guggenheim, and the Raymond Carver Prize.

Praise for The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight : Longlisted for the Orange Prize A Finalist for the Ken Kesey fiction award A Bookmunch Favourite Debut 2009 One of Image Journal's Top Ten of 2009 New York Times Paperback Row "For writers of the present moment, Russian and non-Russian, the Yeltsin years have become a cauldron for a wildly imaginative, surreal literature grounded in post-Soviet exigency, a chilly Macondo stretching over 11 time zones. . . . Gina Ochsner, an Oregon native, sticks her ladle into the same overhead pot and, with luminous writing, affection for her characters and, especially, faith in language's humanizing power, manages to find a portion of hopefulness." - Ken Kalfus, New York Times Book Review "Satirical yet never losing touch with deep emotion, Ochsner illuminates her forlorn characters with the same loving care with which Tanya creates her fake icons." - Boston Globe

Praise for People I Wanted To Be : "In this brightly eccentric collection, [Ochsner] dives gracefully off the deep end and heads for the realm of the unpredictable...she has her own power to transport." - The New York Times "It's easy to lose yourself in this unpredictable, inspiring collection of short stories...Ochsner's originality lies in her ability to make the unknown tangible by taking what we do know for definite and twisting it...this is a beautiful, sensitive and frank book with a moving sense of the fragility of people's lives." - Time Out "A lean, poetic style whose fatalism brings to mind Flannery O'Connor's...strange, poignant, and deeply affecting stories." - LA Times "Her intuitive and masterly handling of the genre is a force to be reckoned with." - The Times Literary Supplement "Gina Ochsner's powerful debut presents eleven stories, many of which have the pared-down quality of her fellow Oregonian Raymond Carver's work...her distinctive prose style brands these stories of loss but holds them back from bleakness, allowing most characters to