Jack Skillingstead has been writing professionally since 2003 when his first sale to Asimov’s—the Sturgeon Award finalist “Dead Worlds”—appeared in the June issue. Readers interested in the years of struggle, experimentation, and sometimes wobbly faith leading up to that first pro sale and all those that followed can find this information in Jack’s essay “The Writing Life,” which is included in his most recent collection The Whole Mess and Other Stories. In the tale that follows, a young man’s life becomes a nightmare when human faces turn alien. To hold onto his sanity he must formulate a . . .