The first time I met Rachel Kann, she was pounding out a poetry performance at The Found Theatre in Long Beach, California. As she delivered her poem,The Familiar Taste of Blood, the room dissolved. She seemed to break open, blossoming into something larger, becoming that “force of nature” cliché we often hear about but rarely see. Later, the artists and those of us not gifted with the power of performance gathered for drinks at a local dive bar. The presence she carried on stage didn’t diminish, and I discovered that she was not only a performance poet, but a writer, comedienne, and oddly enough, an aerobics instructor. She had a class the following morning, but insisted on celebrating, leaving us doubled over in laughter most of the night. When I asked how she could possibly teach aerobics after drinking and performing all night, she mentioned something about showing up, throwing up and sweating booze. Force of nature, indeed.

Kann’s poetry has been set to music by artists like Enduser, and she has performed on stages across the globe. While juggling several creative projects, she managed to create her first work of fiction, 10 for Everything, a collection of short stories (Sybaritic Press, 2007). The book begins with a series of quotes, including one from Ella Fitzgerald that reads, “I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved.” After reading the opening quotes, I expected tightly woven stories of love sought and found or the classic tale of a girl finding herself. What I discovered was something far more genuine and, at times, disturbing.10 for Everything is not for the reader who wants fairy tale endings and narratives wrapped in lovely packages and completed with a shiny pink bow. Kann’s stories are beautifully painful, exposing those dark, shameful places we all venture to. And while less courageous authors and glossy television shows hint at these places but never fully expose them, Kann rips them open, over and over, until we’re finally convinced that the aching humanity we find shameful might not be so rare or embarrassing. In that realization, and with each character’s journey, we find hope.

10 for Everything begins with “The Angle of Repose.” As I read the story, I found myself begging Kann not to go there, not to show that dark, desperate shadow of feminine want. I wanted her to make it prettier and refrain from exposing just how far down the bottom of despair can be in the quest for love. The characters in the story are aptly named He and She, as their contorted romantic dance has been enacted by virtually everyone who’s ever been wounded by love; in fact, She finds herself wondering “if she’s already a goner, tattered scraps of dignity and power in her wake” with a head full of “a symphony of second guesses.” I found myself channeling Oprah, wanting to school She in the art of healthy relationships. Yet, Kann’s characters, both male and female, are brutally flawed. Kann doesn’t seem interested in feeding us a watered down truth. She wants us to know that we are not alone in those darkest moments, and the hope that keeps us going doesn’t always have to be healthy by Oprah-esque standards to keep us moving forward.

Despite the brave descent into our base emotions, Kann’s humor continues to ring through. In “Disappearing,” the main character, Nita, dreams of ascending into heaven with pastel-clad angels who “float up to the sky like a supernatural pride march.” In one scene, Nita is bent over a toilet, faking illness, realizing that she needs “some old-school juju. Some Houdini shit. Pre-Houdini shit. Hell, pre-magick-with-a-k type shit. Some shit in Aramaic. You need to poof… disappear. And tonight, as you lose your shit in Frank’s bathroom, you may not be Catholic, but your god sure as hell is.” In “The Way Back,” she offers a look into Los Angeles that natives would appreciate: “It was like Disney people had added a new annex to the Happiest Place on Earth: Hornydrunkposerland.”

Kann’s characters share a common ache, whether it is due to a want of love or a desire to feel accepted, normal. As Kann writes, “You flood with the familiar poison of feeling awkward and out of place,” a line that can be considered the book’s theme. Yet, her characters seem comforted by the hope that achieving the coveted object will cause “all the sandpaper loneliness…[to melt into] velvet redemption.” True to life, her characters span the generations from pre-teens to seniors, dispelling the myth that age brings wisdom and security and causes everything to magically fall in place.