Pembroke Academy teacher pens new short story collection

After more than two decades, Manchester writer and Pembroke Academy teacher Nathan Graziano has followed up on his debut short story collection, “Frostbite” (Green Bean Press, 2002). On Oct. 21, Roadside Press, an independent press in Illinois, will publish Graziano’s new book “A Better Loser.”

In “A Better Loser,” Nathan Graziano’s new collection of linked short stories, his characters are losing their battles to preserve their dignity and self-respect, which continues to disappear in front of them.

Whether facing romantic troubles, addiction or struggling to keep their passions in check, these characters will not allow their failures to define them — they are learning to become “better losers.” Set in Southern New Hampshire, Graziano’s book introduces readers to a cast that includes amateur magicians, struggling musicians, hirsute giants, runaway teenagers and restless local journalists. Now, Graziano returns with a new round of working-class tales that combine wry humor and a hard — and sometimes dark — look at the relationships that define us.

Exeter’s Todd Hearon — the author of “Do Geese See God” and “Crows in Eden” and a musician whose recent album Yolelady has received critical acclaim — has praised Graziano’s new book.

“Reading Nathan Graziano’s latest collection of interlocking stories is a little like waking in a morning-after fog, with the sinking realization that the stranger crashed beside you in the bed happens to be you,” Hearon writes. “It’s that dire — and it’s funny as hell. Graziano’s eye is at once relentless and sympathetic, and his style is an accelerometer, attuned to the subtlest of emotional vibrations…”

“A Better Loser” is Graziano’s eleventh full-length book, and in many ways, his most ambitious. He is the author of four other works of fiction, his most recent being the novella “Fly Like The Seagull” (Luchador Press, 2021) as well as six collections of poetry.

A high school English teacher at Pembroke Academy and an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University, Graziano’s other works include “Not So Profound” (GBP, 2003) “Teaching Metaphors” (Sunnyoutside Press, 2007), “After the Honeymoon” (Sunnyoutside Press, 2009) “Hangover Breakfasts” (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2012), “Some Sort of Ugly” (Marginalia Publishing, 2013), “My Next Bad Decision” (Artistically Declined Press, 2014), “Almost Christmas” (Redneck Press, 2017) and “Born on Good Friday” (Roadside Press, 2023).