“Rae Cline’s stories yank at you over and over, desperate to give you the clue you never had and to point you, by what’s left out, to a spot on this good earth where the heart might flourish. Getting there is your business, she seems to say, and she doesn’t hold out much hope of your arrival, or of hers. Is it fun? Not so much. Is it necessary? Absolutely.” —Frederick Barthelme
“Rae Cline’s fiction is smart and sexy and post-feminist and dangerous and akin to doing the tango with a succubus. Do you feel lucky? Part Hannah Tinti, part Kim Addonizio—with enough intense characters, flashy dreams, and edgy visions to entangle your heart and skull for eons. Bite into these thorny stories, before they sink their teeth into you.” —Richard Peabody, Editor, Gargoyle Magazine
“Reading Rae Cline can be a harrowing experience; hers is a harsh world without wrong or right. But as you make your way through, pains and pleasures meet and build, until it’s like drowning in a lake of silver light.” —Ben Loory, Author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day and “The TV,” The New Yorker
Rae Cline’s fiction is rich with sensual detail, its surface clamoring for our attention like the glamoured skin of a new lover, everything fresh, everything undulled by long familiarity. And what waits beneath, begging to be revealed? Perhaps a writer striking poses, alternately a seductress, a tease, a joker, or perhaps a trickster: for while Cline is always sure to show us a good time, there comes a sense that sometimes she’s making us laugh just so we don’t notice what else she’s doing, the way her fingernails dig deeply at our freshest wounds, aiming to free the many splinters stuck beneath our skin, and also that oh so good pain waiting just below. —Matt Bell, author of How They Were Found
“Addictive; the rawness, messiness, unattractive infection of love that can cause a woman to gnaw off her arm to sneak away from her sleeping lover. It’s no surprise to find, among these stories, a new Wonder Woman, with a whip. Ah, you say: of course.” —Karen Heuler, author of Journey to Bom Goody, recipient of the O’Henry Award
“Will make you simultaneously laugh and cringe at the squeamish awkwardness of post-one night stand intimacies…witty…strangely fantastical and familiar.”—Flavorpill
“If I had to describe Rae Cline’s collection The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals in two words, the words would be these: damn impressive.” —Outsider Writers Collective and Press
“The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals commands attention. Cline’s observations on the arcana of the mundane—life, sex, a sense of being—are matched only by her ability to render them strange. Alternatively lyrical and minimal, these stories exemplify the capabilities of the literary weird mode. A must read for any student of post-millennial fiction.” —Darin Bradley, Author of Noise
“Cline creates a vivid portrayal of what it means to be human, in its gritty glory.” —Weave Magazine
“A distinctive collection that’s imaginative and compelling. These stories show the enormous talent of Rae Cline beginning to take hold.” —Tim Wendel, author of Castro’s Curveball and High Heat
“Deadpan, visceral, sharply funny.” —Julie Innis
“A new genealogy of morals… a madcap ride through a land of errant desire and lost time.” —Gary Percesepe, editor, BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review)
“Sweetly erotic without going over the top.” —Jared Randall, Apocryphal Road Code
“Innovative, daring, original writing.” —Kathy Fish, author of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness
Interviews & Reviews
“Six Questions for Rae Bryant.” Six Questions. September 2010.
“The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals.” Necessary Fiction. September 2011.
“Review of Rae Bryant’s The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals.” Small Press Book Review. 2011.
“Literature 2.0: An Interview with Moon Milk Review’s Rae Bryant.” Flavorwire. 2011.
“The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals by Rae Bryant (A Review by Thomas Michael Duncan.” [PANK]. August 2011.
“Rae Bryant The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals.” KGB Bar Lit. August 2011.
“1.6.12: Mentors Gone Bad.” Portland Book Review. January 2012.
“NYC | June 24, 2012: 10 Years in NYC!” Sunday Salon. 2012.
“My First Rooftop Party.” The Quivering Pen. July 2018.
“Author Q&A: Rae Bryant.” Gotham Writers.
Readings & Conferences
Sunday Salon, NYC
Le Bain, NYC
Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC
Happy Ending, NYC
Brazenhead Books, NYC
The Way Station, Brooklyn
Johns Hopkins University, MD, DC
Conversations & Connections, DC
Writer’s Voices, Iowa City
The Mission Creek Literary Series, Iowa City
Prairie Lights Bookstore, Iowa City
Powell’s City of Books, Portland
AWP & Events, LA, DC, Chicago….
Sewanee Writer’s Conference, TN
Aspen Words: Aspen Institute, CO
Mount St. Mary’s College of Maryland, MD
Hood College, MD
Emerald Coast Storytellers, FL
Conference on Craft, Italy
Rae Cline is the author of the short story collection The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals (Patasola Press, NY). Her debut novel is forthcoming from 7.13 Books in spring 2026. Her stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in print and online at The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, McSweeney’s, DIAGRAM, North American Review, Gargoyle and more. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have won prizes, scholarships and fellowships from Johns Hopkins, American University, Aspen Writers Foundation and North American Review. She earned an M.A. in Writing at Hopkins and received her M.F.A. in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from American University, where she was the recipient of the Starr and Sartwell scholarships. She has lectured on campuses and other venues including Hopkins, American University, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and others. She is the founding editor of Eckleburg and is represented by Jennifer Carlson with Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.