Darci Schummer reads from "Six Months in the Midwest"

Winter is coming.

In the dark heart of a Minneapolis winter, a young boy struggles to understand his mother’s failing health as she teaches him Polish, the language of her dead mother.  From a distance, a frustrated English professor dines with her mentally ill ex-husband in a park on which a mansion once stood.  A single mother struggles to let go as her teenage son seeks his independence.  A drag queen and his partner battle a snow storm while debating the future of their relationship.  A retired garbage collector finds solace in the ballet, and the owner of a liquor store tries to find companionship on the streets and in the bars of Minneapolis.  Equal parts bitterness and beauty, the sixteen interconnected stories in Six Months in the Midwest are plotted snapshots of a city in its most unforgiving season.  

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Darci Schummer's stories have appeared in places such as Paper Darts, Conclave:  A Journal of Character, Vita.mn, Everyday Fiction, Revolver Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and Open to Interpretation:  Intimate Landscape, among other places. Her first book, Six Months in the Midwest, will be released from Unsolicited Press in late July. She teaches English full-time at Hennepin Technical College and lives in an old Minneapolis upper with her books, records and dresses.