In Zugzwang – Stories of Ilion Heights

A collection of short stories coming soon from Pierian Springs Press.

Click here for a podcast about In Zugzwang.

From the Publisher

In Zugzwang takes readers deep into the battered heart of Ilion Heights—a neighborhood of tight alleys, desperate gambles, and lives on the brink. Across these interlinked stories, a cast of unforgettable characters battles the grinding reality of factory work, the anxiety of immigration, and the haunting pull of half-buried dreams. Through the eyes of garbage collectors, day laborers, and struggling families, Liss paints a landscape where even small victories feel hard-won, and every turn feels like a move in a deadly game of chess.

At the center of this gritty tapestry is the looming sense of zugzwang—the notion that any move you make can only worsen your position. Whether it’s Anastasia’s fierce bid to protect her son’s future, a war-scarred Joao seeking solace behind a camera lens, or Sabatino’s quiet crusade against the cruelty of the city’s powerful, each story pulses with the tension of choices made under crushing constraints. Yet amid the clamor of back-alley deals and relentless shifts at the transfer station, sparks of hope flicker: a whispered dream, a shared vision, a stubborn act of defiance against a world determined to keep its denizens down.

Overflowing with raw humanity, dark humor, and bursts of longing, In Zugzwang challenges readers to grapple with the forces—poverty, power, and the past—that relentlessly shape these lives. Liss masterfully unravels the threads of a forgotten community, revealing that in the harshest places, there is still grace to be found in resilience and the abiding desire for meaning.

From the Author

In chess, to be “in zugzwang” is more than being in a situation where every move available to you results in either being checkmated or being in a worse position; it is also being in a situation where you must move.  The characters in these stories wrestle with this as part of their daily lives.  The collection is a set of ten short stories linked by theme, time, location, plot elements, and characters.  The location is Ilion Heights, an isolated urban slum which is the last neighborhood at the end of the world.  The overriding theme is work and the role of work, or the lack thereof, in the lives of characters growing up and living in Ilion Heights with few options but being forced to make choices, i.e. being “in zugzwang.” 

In Zugzwang – Stories of Ilion Heights was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction sponsored by the University of Georgia Press and for the St. Lawrence Book Award sponsored by Black Lawrence Press. All the stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines.  8 of the 10 have won awards or received other forms of recognition including a Pushcart Prize nomination.