A student changes her work for a class reading, destroying her marriage but embarking on a new life. A bored housewife regretfully declines an offer to sell her house and start a new romance. Two girls plot to kill one of their stepfathers, and the unexpected results alter their friendship. A stalked young woman, having an affair with a married man, seeks safety with a college mentor and loses her last refuge. Several of the stories are set in locales like Auburn and Buffalo.
Strangers come and go.
High school students discuss Jean-Paul Sartre. Men and women intersect at oblique angles. Hubbard charmed the awards committee with the economy of her language, her fresh and varied characters, and her wit. Hubbard, who got her bachelor's and master's degrees at Syracuse University, is an associate professor of English at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Her first book, Walking on Ice , won the Associated Writing Programs' Prize for Short Fiction.