“We Are a Teeming Wilderness is the rare book that belongs both on the high shelf of the connoisseur and at the top of the stack on anyone's bedside table. These stories imagine the past with a keen awareness of the present, and vice versa. The result is a collection of characters—from microorganisms to hosiery salesmen to clairvoyants—who are bizarre, familiar, pathological, comic, sympathetic, foolish, and wise, sometimes all at once. Reading to escape, I found myself transported to near and distant pasts and speculative realities. Reading to learn, I found myself captivated by anthropologies at once historical, mythic, scientific, and intimately personal. Reading to enjoy, I had a plain good time; whatever readers are looking for when they pick up these stories, they’ll find more than they expect, which is the wonderful surprise of any great book.” —Claire V. Foxx, Press 53 Short Fiction Editor