A Lesson in Manners
Description
Winner of the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award. The ten stories in this haunting and hilarious collection offer a how-to manual for dealing with love, lies, and loneliness. Sam Wesson, an up-and-coming country western singer, plots to get pregnant without her boyfriend's consent, while Dacey, already pregnant, confronts her cheating husband over her secret checking account. Andrea rescues a stray dog to avoid facing her complicated human relationships. Sarah, an exotic dancer, longs for employment at religious theme park, and Amelia dreams of creating impossible bonsai. Whether facing life-threatening illness or overwhelming loss, these characters scheme in humble, funny, sympathetic, and outrageous ways to find an etiquette that will deliver them from disappointment and shield them from crushing grief.
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Person
Misty Urban is a fiction writer, medievalist, editor, and teacher. Her debut short story collection, A Lesson in Manners, won the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award for Fiction and was published by Snake Nation Press, and her second short story collection was released by Paradisiac Publishing. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction have been widely published and received several awards, including two nominations for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of assorted works of medieval scholarship, including Monstrous Women in Middle English Romance, and co-editor of Melusine's Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth. She teaches at Muscatine Community College in Muscatine, IA, where she reads and writes in the company of one handsome park ranger, two small people who like to be read to, and a rather heavy collection of books.
