Claudia Cortese’s first full-length book, WASP QUEEN (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), explores the privilege and pathology, trauma and brattiness of suburban girlhood through a character named Lucy. Cortese is also the author of two chapbooks: Blood Medals (Thrush Poetry Press, 2015), a collection of prose poems, and The Red Essay and Other Histories (Horse Less Press, 2015), a book of lyric essays. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2011, Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast Online, and Sixth Finch, among others. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey, where she teaches at Montclair State University.

FICTION

“The first mall" and Other Stories

By CLAUDIA CORTESE

“The first mall was built in 1956 in a suburb of Minneapolis.”