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Kerry Donoghue

Mouth

january 21, 2025

Mouth

Short stories

Consumption drives everything. And how we use our mouths reveals the surprising depths of our hunger: the alcohol we can’t stop drinking, the brother-in-law we won’t stop kissing, the ice cubes we continuously chew to replace our meals.

In this debut collection, a rodeo clown, a competitive eater, a jazz pianist, and a mermaid-in-training, among others, are forced to confront who they become when they can't fill their emptiness.

Alcoholism, infidelity, perfectionism...who are we when we hunger?

Available on 1/21/25 from the fine folks at Unsolicited Press.

Other writings

Every woman deserves to choose if, or when, they become a mom.

”Capable”

Ninth Letter, Winter 2019

Read it

Listen to it

Abstract Space in the Mouth Illustration

Did you know 30% of eligible women don’t vote?

Girls who learn the power of their voice early in life use it on the ballot later on.

Buy it

Why & where

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles during the ‘80s meant BIG MALL ENERGY.

I spent so much of my childhood roaming through department stores and food courts, walking laps with my grandma after her heart surgery. Trick-or-treating. Secretly meeting boys. Getting socked in the face with a purse while I worked the holiday rush. It set off my fascination with consumption. What do the things we buy, wear, drink, eat reveal about what’s really going on inside us?

My poetry and earlier versions of these stories have appeared in Ninth Letter, Painted Bride Quarterly, Permafrost, The Louisville Review, and The South Carolina Review, among other journals. I also wrote The Loudest Voice of All, a children’s book, to raise funds to help educate girls about the power of voting. I earned an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco.

My capacity for reality TV and donuts is endless.