Hailed by ZZ Packer as “a master of tone, detail, and imagery”, Andrew Siegrist’s debut collection We Imagined it was Rain is a lovesong to Tennessee. These loosely connected stories are imbued with tenderness, seriousness, and an understanding of the human spirit. A young man moves to the the mountains and builds an heirloom chest in the wake of his son’s death; a town official must make the decision to execute a circus elephant, two siblings help their father commit suicide; a preacher picks up the pieces of his ruined church, and his marriage, after a devasting flood; locals share stories of the girl with eyelashes so long she can braid them; a lonely man uses rain to paint. A striking and thoughtful debut, Siegrist demonstrates careful attention to the smallest moments, to the rain on a window pane. We Imagined it was Rain is the winner of our 2020 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize.