Left behind by the hyper-acceleration of a new century are the lives 
encountered in Sky Full of Burdens. In one way or another facing 
extinction or obsolescence, the men and women in these stories 
could be described as vestigial: the proprietor of a failing grocery in 
a town literally about to be erased from the map; a man isolated by 
a physical handicap who stakes much of his identity to an 
engineering quirk on a local highway. Exile from their comfort zones 
brings them into direct contact with irrevocable mistakes, deferred 
realizations, and unexpected connections with the humanity and 
fallibility of others. The interplay of painful losses and discovered 
compensations is echoed in the alternately bleak and beautiful 
landscape of northern Michigan.

"When you begin a Meg Moceri story, you immediately enter the 
lives of its characters, and you automatically share their quandaries, 
hopes, and regrets. When you reach the end, you feel an ache in 
your heart that will last for some time. Her rendering of the flawed 
souls in these pages is both severe and sympathetic, tragic, and, at 
times, unexpectedly comic. The author's piercing intelligence is 
matched by her mastery of the language. She writes sentences that 
get directly to the heart of the matter, with phrases so well turned 
that they make you see afresh the way we sad humans stumble 
along life's path."—David Carkeet

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MEG MOCERI has had stories in Crab Creek Review, Storyquarterly, 
Natural Bridge, Tartts: Fiction from Emerging Writers, and other 
journals. In addition to a Pushcart Prize nomination, she has been a 
finalist in the New Millennium Awards fiction competition and the 
Discovery Awards from Lewis-Clark Press. She lives with her 
husband and children in Grand Rapids, Michigan.