Cortez’s short story, The Year of the Self, centers on a protagonist struggling to recover from a breakup. It’s a familiar premise, but in this case, executed with a fresh vision and voice, as the story resists being driven by causality. Instead, it’s told in impressionistic fragments. We watch the narrator push through the mundanity of everyday life while trying to find ways to shirk the weight of her grief. As the story progresses, the narrator ascribes a kind of existential profundity to the most everyday misfortunes—whether she's stepping in dog shit or getting a yeast infection. The result is a story more wry and sparkling than melancholy.