Everybody Needs Something: Stories - Paperback

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by Melanie Pappadis Faranello (Author)

Melanie Faranello's debut collection, Everybody Needs Something, delves into the interior lives of characters longing for connection, revealing the deep human desire to reach one another. A poignant exploration of the complexities of love, loss, and what is often left unsaid, the stories center on the space between us--couples, families, aging parents, children, and evolving selves that are shaped over time.

A newly widowed construction worker travels to a debris-filled healing pool to ease his grief; a retired couple relocates across the globe hoping to escape their troubles only to discover a new problematic infestation; a father places an ad inviting strangers to his first solo Thanksgiving dinner; a couple on the brink endures a wildlife lecture at the elementary school between hospital visiting hours for their daughter; a young divorcee has an unexpected encounter with her long-dead father during a Latin Ballroom dance class.

Quietly powerful and carefully observed, these fourteen stories resonate with emotional landscapes and hidden heartbreaks as characters meet their breaking points before somehow finding the courage to keep going.

Author Biography

MELANIE PAPPADIS FARANELLO has authored numerous stories and essays that have appeared in various publications, including Swamp Pink, Electric Literature, StoryQuarterly, Hippocampus, Vol 1. Brooklyn, HuffPost Personal, Blackbird, StorySouth and elsewhere. Her work has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won Key West Literary Seminars' Emerging Writers Award for Novel-in-Progress. She was a 2024 Writer-in-Residence at Monson Arts and holds her M.F.A. from The New School. She is also the founder of Poetry on the Streets. Originally from Chicago, she lives with her family in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she is a teaching artist and at work on a novel. Read more at www.melaniefaranello.com and find her on Instagram and Facebook.

Number of Pages: 188

Dimensions: 0.5 x 8.4 x 5.4 IN

Publication Date: March 15, 2026