A dazzling collection of fifteen stories from an author who revels in playing with form but never loses the heartbeat, whose writing ?packs a powerful punch? (Tucson Weekly).

An apprentice dominatrix suddenly loses her grip, a spurned wife attempts to explain her husband's flaws to his mother, a stripper turns the tables on a jeering customer . . . Jana Martin's smart, vulnerable heroines respond to life's curveballs with guts and flair. In luminous prose she deftly plumbs the depths of their troubles?and shows the often startling ways in which they dig themselves out.

>Beyoncé, Grrl, Avedon: The Sixties, and Feckless Cunt. Her work appears in ­numerous publications, including The Weeklings, La Piccioletta Barca, New World Writing Quarterly, Spork, Five Points, Mississippi Review, Glimmer Train, The New York Times, Yeti, and Chemical Imbalance. She's the editor of Vanishing Point Forever, Richard Prince: Cowboy, Tamara de Lempicka: Deco and Decadence, and Nagle, Ron. She's taught at SUNY New Paltz and other universities, and received NEA and Glimmer Train awards and a Pushcart Prize nomination. She's also been a town councilmember, Search and Rescue K9 handler, go-go dancer, cook, photo editor, project manager, and bass and guitar player and singer in numerous bands. She lives, writes, and works in the Hudson Valley.