CAN I HAVE A HUG FIRST?
Mary Paula Hunter's debut short story collection, "CAN I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" highlights the distinctively zany voice she developed as a performance artist. The stories feature characters struggling to navigate a world they ride like a wild horse. Problems seem self-inflicted, yet Hunter’s storytelling leaves nothing clear-cut. Is the chaos external or internal?
In the medical thriller "The Pressing Foundation," Hunter blends reality and imagination, creating a new vaudeville. Here, a cheery doctor with a mysterious repetitive speech pattern becomes more puzzling than a woman’s strange abdominal sensation.
The title story, "Can I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" follows a dance teacher tormented by the chaotic world outside her ballet studio. After a harrowing walk through Providence, dodging falling tree limbs and out-of-control cars, she encounters a clown who is actually her tenant in need of legal help. The more she tries to distance herself from this desperate and enigmatic woman, the more their worlds collide, leading them in unexpected directions.
Fiction/ 9781963115260/ February 18, 2025
Mary Paula Hunter's debut short story collection, "CAN I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" highlights the distinctively zany voice she developed as a performance artist. The stories feature characters struggling to navigate a world they ride like a wild horse. Problems seem self-inflicted, yet Hunter’s storytelling leaves nothing clear-cut. Is the chaos external or internal?
In the medical thriller "The Pressing Foundation," Hunter blends reality and imagination, creating a new vaudeville. Here, a cheery doctor with a mysterious repetitive speech pattern becomes more puzzling than a woman’s strange abdominal sensation.
The title story, "Can I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" follows a dance teacher tormented by the chaotic world outside her ballet studio. After a harrowing walk through Providence, dodging falling tree limbs and out-of-control cars, she encounters a clown who is actually her tenant in need of legal help. The more she tries to distance herself from this desperate and enigmatic woman, the more their worlds collide, leading them in unexpected directions.
Fiction/ 9781963115260/ February 18, 2025
Mary Paula Hunter's debut short story collection, "CAN I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" highlights the distinctively zany voice she developed as a performance artist. The stories feature characters struggling to navigate a world they ride like a wild horse. Problems seem self-inflicted, yet Hunter’s storytelling leaves nothing clear-cut. Is the chaos external or internal?
In the medical thriller "The Pressing Foundation," Hunter blends reality and imagination, creating a new vaudeville. Here, a cheery doctor with a mysterious repetitive speech pattern becomes more puzzling than a woman’s strange abdominal sensation.
The title story, "Can I HAVE A HUG FIRST?" follows a dance teacher tormented by the chaotic world outside her ballet studio. After a harrowing walk through Providence, dodging falling tree limbs and out-of-control cars, she encounters a clown who is actually her tenant in need of legal help. The more she tries to distance herself from this desperate and enigmatic woman, the more their worlds collide, leading them in unexpected directions.
Fiction/ 9781963115260/ February 18, 2025
About MARY PAULA HUNTER
Mary Paula Hunter began her writing career as a performance artist, blending text with dance. Her debut novel, "Someone Else" (2019), has a five-star rating on Amazon and was featured by Kirkus Indie Editors in the June 2020 issue of Kirkus Reviews. The Village Voice and The Manhattan Spirit have praised her writing as "brilliant." Her short story "Can I Have a Hug First?" was published online by Gulf Coast in 2018. Her flash fiction piece "Heaven" appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine in 2016. Her story "Grocery Store," submitted to Glimmer Train, placed in the top 3% and received an Honorable Mention.
Hunter's insights into middle graders and high schoolers come from raising two children and running a dance studio for many years. She lives in Providence, RI, with her husband, Richard Meckel, a historian at Brown University.
