Jim Gilkeson

Fifteen stories · Tenacity Press · 2025

The ElevenDirectionsof Kansas

Jim Gilkeson

The Eleven Directions of Kansas by Jim Gilkeson book cover

WinnerCoffin Memorial Award for Non-Fiction, 2025

About the book

Stories that follow the strange routes a life can take.

At turns evocative, wistful, unexpected, and funny, these fifteen imaginative stories move through questions of home, discovery, creativity, friendship, and the directions a life can take.

The collection follows the strange routes by which experience becomes story—across Kansas and far beyond it—while remaining grounded in close attention to human eccentricity and connection.

Inside the collection

Fifteen directions.

An editorial guide to the stories, using the author’s own synopses.

  1. The Eleven Directions of Kansas

    A boy takes it upon himself to find out how many directions there are and ends up with eleven.

  2. Topeka on the Danube

    A young man ransacks his father’s old rolltop desk and discovers a side of his father that he never knew about.

  3. Terrible Power

    The narrator offers a contemplation of the formidable power we possess.

  4. Mr. Haircut

    An unexpected door opens for a teacher of Turkish teenagers in Germany.

  5. Theodosia and the Bonesetter

    The enigmatic daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr is cured of a hip ailment by a rustic practitioner of manual medicine.

  6. The Passion of Ariadne del Sol

    A virtuoso pianist and an elderly sculptor, each in their own way, guide a callow monk to an insight into suffering and the creative process.

  7. OK, Charles

    While traveling for one last visit, a man records his telepathic dispatches to a dying friend.

  8. Lovely Birds

    The last communication of a twelve-year-old boy with his mother.

  9. Shoes That Fit

    A man learns from his eccentric uncle the power of asking questions.

  10. A New Day

    A quirky, one-off event shifts the relationship of two former friends.

  11. The Expensive Date

    A newly-in-love couple has their resolve to be together tested at an eco-resort in Costa Rica.

  12. Earthquake

    A man has to make sudden, serious choices relating to the nature of his existence—is he in an altered state?—when he is caught in an earthquake.

  13. Ms. Transylvania

    A woman learns, despite language barriers and cultural differences, that she can change her beliefs.

  14. The Devil and Angus McPhee

    An elderly, eccentric Scottish faith healer living near Loch Ness befriends two travelers.

  15. The Green Tea Cult

    A writer ponders whether he is a “real writer” and whether or not such a thing as a “real writer” even exists.

2025

Recognition

Coffin Memorial Award

Non-Fiction

Praise

Readers on the collection.

“What a gem of a book! These deceptively simple, well-written, and evocative stories—part musing, part essay, part memoir, part flight of fancy, all heart—carry the reader to all the directions.”

Priscilla Howe, author of Clever, Kind, Tricky, & Sly

“Jim’s explorations into life are as deep and present as his voice. Each story is a life study that will make you look at your own life and ask: What more do I have to tell?”

Jay Golden, author of Retellable

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