Red Emma’s

A philosophical fable, CROCOSMIA centers on Maya as she recollects the "great turning"—a moment of radical social and ecological change effected by her mother, Jane's, art. As Maya recalls her upbringing--from a commune run by anarchist nuns to a time of rural isolation before her mother's disappearance—Mellis's prose gorgeously conjures a life defined by revolutionary thought and action and the interplay and tension between family life and political commitment. At once a fantasy, a handbook to political thought, and a work of eco-fiction, this lush novel meditates on how, in a world on the precipice, dreams of communal care can bloom.

Miranda Mellis is the author of DEMYSTIFICATIONS (2021); THE INSTEAD (2016); THE SPOKES (2012); NONE OF THIS IS REAL (2012); and THE REVISIONIST (2007). Her stories, poems, and essays have appeared in various publications including Harper’s, The Believer, BOMB, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and Millay Colony. She received the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction, the Michael S. Harper Praxis Prize, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Olympia, Washington.