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Anne Valente

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Anne Valente is the author of two novels, The Desert Sky Before Us (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2019) and Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down (William Morrow, 2016), as well as the short story collection, By Light We Knew Our Names (Dzanc Books, 2014). Her fiction appears in One Story, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and the Chicago Tribune, and her essays appear in The Believer, Literary Hub, Catapult and the Washington Post.

My Body, My Machine

I run so I can inhabit my own body. I run so that in moments like these, when my lack of power in this world becomes more violently apparent, I can feel the strength of my own body, enough to ignore provocations, enough to know alone that I could destroy both of those men if I wanted.
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