In her latest collection of stories, Julie Schumacher presents 13 fictional tales of women and girls who are all faced with awkward, uncomfortable, or in some other way undesirable situations.
"Some of them are facing real challenges, real struggles," says Schumacher of the characters in Patient, Female, her latest publication. "They're all facing challenges that at times feel overwhelming to them, and they are thrashing along trying to figure out what's on the plate before them." Stories range from a mother who gets a call from school about an incident on the playground involving her daughter, to a woman who runs into an acquaintance from high school while volunteering as a hospital patient.
"I'm particularly interested in... human emotions, human relationships, human interactions," says Schumacher who keeps the events of the stories within the boundaries of reality. All the stories are works of fiction, and the characters within make reasonable choices based on their motivations, the results of which are sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, and are sometimes surprisingly both.
Patient, Female is available at a wide variety of bookstores including local independent booksellers and online through Milkweed Editions.
Minnesota Reads is produced at The North 103.3 with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
