“Heat Visions” is an unpublished short story collection by Damieka Thomas. This collection explores coming-of-age while dealing with the complexities of mixed-race identity, addiction, loss, and trauma. Female friendship, relationships between mothers and daughters, the loss of fathers, and the difficulties of generational trauma feature heavily in these stories. In “After Mia,” two best friends growing up in Fort Bragg, CA learn what it is to find comfort in friendship amid the chaos of familial addiction and childhood trauma. In “A Good Night to Die,” a young man stuck in Marysville, CA contemplates the loss of his father and makes a decision that may chance the course of his life. In "Praying," a woman learns the ways in which mothers may be close to God. And in the titular story, a young girl’s father returns to her life, only to remind her of his impermenance. 

In these stories, taking place over the winding roads of Fort Bragg, CA, the man-made lakes of Marysville, CA, and the potholed streets of Live Oak, CA, girls and women fight hard for the lives that they were promised by an American dream that was never really made for them, with varying levels of success. They learn the transformative, and sometimes toxic, power of female friendship. They take long trips up the coast. They drink a bit too much. They keep secrets, and they learn to let go. And above all, they return to the redwoods and to the beach, seeking solace in the peace of the West Coast.