In Conversation with Laura Leigh Morris

In a span of minutes, the lives of four members of Brickton Community College change forever when an active shooter enters the campus and opens fire. Running on adrenaline and fear, the group—a crew of students and their teacher—subdues the perpetrator in a violent frenzy that leads to the man’s death. Reeling from the shock of their collective actions, the group is thrown into turmoil when they realize that the person they have killed is someone they all knew. Narrated in alternating voices and set against the backdrop of an economically depressed Appalachian town, Laura Leigh Morris’s The Stone Catchers explores the immeasurable pain and loss felt by the survivors of a school shooting. Forced to process the horror of the event, mourn, and to reconcile themselves to their newfound recognition as local heroes, the survivors grapple with the losses suffered by their community and their own actions. In the process they come face to face with the unquantifiable cost gun violence takes on not only the survivors, but the families, friends, and futures of a community fractured by tragedy.

Laura Leigh Morris is the author of The Stone Catchers: A Novel and Jaws of Life: Stories. She’s previously published short fiction in STORY Magazine, North American Review, JMWW, Redivider, and other journals and anthologies. She teaches creative writing and literature at Furman University.