Cut on the Bias: Stories About Women and the Clothes They Wear in Bloomington, MN

An anthology of fictional short stories, this collection explores the intensely personal relationships women have with what they wear, what clothes mean to them, why women choose what they do, and how they consume fashion and the subtle and sophisticated shifts in self-perception that the simple act of dressing can represent. With image as the central metaphor for transformation, all the stories weave colorful pictures of humor and joy, love and friendship, illness and grief, and of unfulfilled lives and ugly ducklings who discover their own ways of becoming beautiful swans. One woman asks what she should wear to meet the mother who gave her up at birth, another writes of the death of a long-dead brother, a third straps on her armor to enter the professional world of politics. There are also stories that have fun examining contemporary obsessions with celebrity styling, makeovers, and women’s magazines. Some tales are rites of passage as girls become women who then move on through the various stages and experiences of their adult lives. Be they dramatic monologues, tales of the supernatural, painful diary entries, or narrative as a witty exchange of e-mails, all the stories are from exciting, contemporary women’s voices, cut with color and seamed with magic.