Ray Morrison

Ray Morrison spent most of his childhood in Brooklyn, NY and Washington, D.C. but headed south after college to earn his degree in veterinary medicine and he hasn't looked north since. He has happily settled in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife and three children where, when he is not writing short stories, he ministers to the needs of dogs, cats, and rodents. His fiction has appeared in Fiction Southeast, Ecotone, Aethlon, Carve Magazine, Word Riot, Night Train, and others. His stories also appear in a number of anthologies, including What Doesn't Kill You..., Press 53 Spotlight, and The Mix Tape: A Flash Fiction Anthology (Fast Forward Press). He won first prize in the Short Story category of the 2011 Press 53 Open Awards (judged by Chris Offutt) and he has twice won Honorable Mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.

Praise for I Hear the Human Noise

The twin subjects of love and death run through Ray Morrison’s book like a freight train rumbling slowly late at night across a countryside overcome with sadness and loss. I Hear the Human Noise is a masterful collection of short stories, and Morrison is proof that, even in these narcissistic, technologically driven times we’re living in, there are still people out there who care deeply about what it means to just be human.

—Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and The Heavenly Table

Praise for In A World of Small Truths

“With a flinty glare and a fine ear for language, these stories give us the 'wahoo!' great fiction always provides, and never lets up. Morrison's subjects range from dogs to divorce and even to a uterus in a jar. These are stories you won't soon forget.”

—Rusty Barnes, author of Mostly Redneck and co-founder of Night Train

“A casual glance at Ray Morrison’s In a World of Small Truths suggest a channeling of Harry Crews, of William Gay, but Morrison stakes out his own territory in the Southern milieu here. He’s at his best when he writes of the tensions between one troubled man and another; characters challenged by crisis—two friends on the run after robbing a convenience store, a man who awakes to find his dog’s throat slit and is convinced it was a neighbor—but for readers who are willing to gaze, unblinkingly, at the characters’ lives and struggles, there are definite surprises and rewards.”

—Terry L. Kennedy, editor of storySouth

“Morrison’s range of voice is stunning—from the deep drumbeat of true grit to the high-pitched timbre of irretrievable loss. Here is a landscape of the human condition, fully realized. Often harsh, often heartbreakingly poignant, Morrison’s characters grasp for the small truths in their lives, some coming up empty-handed, others given that one shot at redemption. A magnificent, kaleidoscopic view of the extraordinary nature of ordinary lives, rendered in lucid, pitch-perfect prose.”

—Lorian Hemingway, author of Walk on Water