"'Three Things You Should Know About Peggy Paula,' is one of the saddest stories I have ever read; it is also one of the loveliest," writes guest editor Roxane Gay in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading. "Peggy Paula is a waitress at the Perkins, a job that brings her close enough to smell the popular girls she yearns to know. She is a woman who can find beauty from the bottom of a dumpster as a young man pisses above her. She will welcome another woman’s man into her bed so she can feel, however fleetingly, that she is part of the world she spends so much of her life watching. 'Three Things You Should Know About Peggy Paula' is a story about loneliness and always being on the edge of things. It’s about wanting so damn much and only getting a fraction of the human connection you need. It’s about how you learn to accept that this fraction is all you’re going to get."About Recommended Reading:Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.About the author:Lindsay Hunter is the author of the short story collections Daddy's and Don't Kiss Me. She lives in Chicago, where she is cofounder and cohost of the flash-fiction reading series Quickies! About the Guest Editor:Roxane Gay lives and writes in the Midwest.