Take Us to a Better Place · Stories

Take Us To a Better Place: Stories is a collection of powerful, perceptive, and seamlessly crafted fiction from a diverse group of storytellers that tells multiple truths about the realities of our health and well-being and the world in which we live. Roxane Gay writes: “These collected stories...are hopeful and cautionary tales. They are, above all, a call to action, offering all of us the opportunity to rise to the occasion of contributing, in the ways we can, to a world where a healthier life is possible for all.”

Conjuring a present and future that is at once vivid and hopeful, as well as heartbreaking and perilous, these deeply human stories will linger long after you finish. The stories spark new ideas about what a healthy community might hold—and how we might get there.

The book features the literary talents of Hannah Lillith Assadi (finalist, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize), Calvin Baker, Frank Bill, Mike McClelland, and Achy Obejas (finalist, PEN/Faulkner); the bold visual storytelling of David Robertson and Selena Goulding; the searing science fiction writing of New York Times best-selling authors Martha Wells (winner of the Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards) and Yoon Ha Lee (winner, Locus Award), and speculative fiction writers Karen Lord (finalist, Locus Award) and Madeline Ashby. The stories explore issues such as health care, climate change, immigration, gentrification, and post-traumatic stress disorder with keen observations, fully-drawn characters, and haunting narratives.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. The Foundation is working alongside others toward its vision of a Culture of Health, where everyone has a fair and just opportunity for health and well-being. It is in this spirit that the Foundation invited ten authors to write a story about what a Culture of Health means to them. This book is the result and is offered free to readers by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Visit www.rwjf.org/fiction for more information.