Swim Deep, Bite Hard
In River City, loyalty is everything—and nothing defines it more than warcheck, the elegantly violent game that unites the town. Terra Laclem, daughter of a retired warcheck legend, is raised to honor family, faith, and tradition.
But when her father betrays the ideals he’s always preached, Terra is forced to question the world she thought she knew. As she comes of age, her search for belonging pulls her between inherited loyalties and a deeper truth, one tied to the beloved turtle mascots that symbolize her town’s way of life.
The Diamondbacks is a lyrical, coming-of-age debut about the weight of legacy, the bonds that shape us, and the quiet rebellions that lead us home.
Bio
Sandra K. Barnidge is a novelist and essayist whose work explores place, memory, ecology, and the overlooked histories of everyday landscapes. Her debut novel, The Diamondbacks, is a speculative coming-of-age story about class, gender, and cultural inheritance.
Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Reckon Review, Atlas Obscura, Barren, The Fiddlehead, Nimrod, and elsewhere. Originally from Beloit, Wisconsin, she now lives in Gainesville, Florida. She holds an MA in journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama. Her work has been supported by the Key West Writing Workshop.
She is also the co-founder of Handcraft Nation, a project dedicated to sustaining local creative economies by spotlighting artists and makers across the United States.
Headshot: Bang Images.
Selected Work
Imagined Worlds
Hollow Eggs // Reservoir Road Literary Review
Ellaria Jane Peterson Is Going To Die // Barren Magazine (Reprinted 2024 in Fragile Like a Bomb by BULL Press.)
Mullenville, Population 82 // Allegory Ridge
The Waubeen Annual Kanaranzi Kimball Day // Nimrod International Journal
The Last Grand Tour of Albertine’s Watch // Arizona State University Center for Imagination
Real World
Buried Nitrogen: A column on native plants and creativity // Reckon Review
The best rural noir books about grief, haunted landscapes, and resilience // Shepherd.com
Let’s keep asking what the Northport Park debate is really about // Patch
The Matilda Effect // On Wisconsin Magazine
The 1920s women who fought for the right to travel under their own names // Atlas Obscura
Madcap Writer Makes History in a Model T // On Wisconsin
How to blend in at an Alpine Krampus Parade // Atlas Obscura
The Warlord’s Biographer // On Wisconsin Magazine
The best new fiction about climate change // Shepherd
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Sandra K. Barnidge 