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NESFA Press

Hardcover (Trade)

Published February 2020
Hardcover (Trade) price: $32.00
Weight: 2.26

ISBN-13: 978-1-61037-338-8
ISBN-10: 1-61037-338-3
Page count: 476
Book Size: 5-1/2" x 8-1/2"

Ebook (epub)

Published April 2020
Ebook (epub) price: $9.95

ISBN-13: 978-1-61037-339-5
ISBN-10: 1-61037-339-1
Page count: 476
Book Size: 800Kb

Ebook (mobi)

Published April 2020
Ebook (mobi) price: $9.95

ISBN-13: 978-1-61037-017-2
ISBN-10: 1-61037-017-1
Page count: 476
Book Size: 800Kb

Believing

The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

This text relates to the 1st edition • Hardcover (Trade)

by Zenna Henderson

Zenna Henderson is best known for her stories of The People, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. The People, a group of human-appearing aliens, escaped the destruction of their home world only to be shipwrecked on Earth, where they struggled to hide their extra abilities. These stories were collected into one volume in 1995 when NESFA Press published Ingathering: The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson. During the same period, Henderson published an equal number of non-People stories. Like the stories of The People, they range from comforting to unnerving. Fans of The People will recognize the same underlying belief in the goodness of people and other beings as they struggle for a chance at a better future. These stories have a common theme — belief. A girl believes that the hills are lost beasts and leads them home; a boy believes he can fight evil with a pocket piece made from Popsicle sticks; a boy believes he can build a noise-eating machine — with fatal results. Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson contains every non-People story, all long out of print. Thirty-three of the stories in this volume are from her collections, The Anything Box and Holding Wonder. The remaining five stories and three poems were previously published in other magazines and anthologies. Welcome to Zenna Henderson’s world. Dust jacket illustration “Worlds of Fire and Ice” ©2001 by Bob Eggleton Dust jacket design by Matt Smaldone

Table of Contents

  • The Universal Conversation by Sharon Lee
  • Belief in Zenna Henderson by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ
  • Stories from The Anything Box:
    • The Anything Box
    • Subcommittee
    • Something Bright
    • Hush!
    • Food to All Flesh
    • Come on, Wagon!
    • Walking Aunt Daid
    • The Substitute
    • The Grunder
    • Things
    • Turn the Page
    • Stevie and the Dark
    • And a Little Child—
    • The Last Step
  • Stories from Holding Wonder:
    • J-line to Nowhere
    • You Know What, Teacher?
    • The Effectives
    • Loo Ree
    • The Closest School
    • Three-Cornered and Secure
    • The Taste of Aunt Sophronia
    • The Believing Child
    • Through a Glass—Darkly
    • As Simple as That
    • Swept and Garnished
    • One of Them
    • Sharing Time
    • Ad Astra
    • Incident After
    • The Walls
    • Crowning Glory
    • Boona on Scancia
    • Love Every Third Stir
  • Poems and Uncollected Stories:
    • Realize (poem)
    • Afternoon Rain (poem)
    • Gray (poem)
    • Before the Fact
    • Thrumthing and Out
    • The First Stroke
    • There Was a Garden
    • …Old…as a Garment
  • Acknowledgments
  • Sources

Zenna Henderson

Zenna Chlarson Henderson (1917–1983) was born in Tucson, Arizona. Although she became a teacher because the nearest state school was a teacher’s college, Henderson later stated she’d rather earn her living teaching first grade than any other way. She would make time to write before school and at the end of the day. Henderson is best known for “The People,” a group of aliens trying to adapt to Earth, but she also wrote many non-People stories. All her writing exhibits a warmth, gentleness and a sense of the worth of human and non-human beings. She well understood human fears, frailties, and hopes. Her stories were the basis of the 1971 TV movie, The People, and her story “Hush!” became an episode of Tales of the Darkside in 1988. “Henderson provides a warm, emotional voice, prefeminist yet independent, examining issues of identity, loneliness, nostalgia and caring.” —Publishers Weekly “Miss Henderson tells her tales with a tender, gentle magic.” —The Kirkus Reviews
Edited by Patricia Morgan Lang
Jacket art by Bob Eggleton
Jacket design by Matt Smaldone

Other NESFA Press titles by Zenna Henderson

IngatheringIngathering