Superpowers

A collection of frequently absurd and surprisingly moving short stories, featuring ordinary people with superpowers that none of them would have chosen.

A woman who can speak with cats, a boy who can bring dead spiders back to life, a healer hiding with charlatans (and drummers) in a hippie commune, a man who retreats into invisibility, a man struggling with the pressure of being born of immaculate conception…

Superpowers is a collection of stories about people who find themselves burdened with remarkable gifts that they neither chose nor know what to do with. With a cast of characters from the margins that are at once ordinary, hidden, lonely and somehow heroic, these stories are about playing the hand you are dealt even if you don’t know what game it is you are playing.

Author Biography

Mark A. Radcliffe is the author of two novels, Gabriel’s Angel (2010) and Stranger Than Kindness (2013). He has worked as a singer, mental health nurse, journalist and Senior Lecturer in Health Care. He is currently the Subject Lead for Creative Writing at West Dean College of Art and Conservation.

Beyond all that he likes to swim in very cold water, has written a column for The Nursing Times for twenty-five years, and grows vegetables to give to strangers – because you can tell a lot about a society by how it responds to free home-grown veg. He lives in Hove, East Sussex with his wife Kate, and daughter, Maia.