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About
Milbrodt's stories probe the impact of job choices on the lives of a love-lorn circus clown, a racecar driver/pole dancer, a retired sideshow fat lady and her "skeleton man" friend, a 60-year-old, cliff-jumping caregiver, and two shopping mall security guards who are single parents.From "Job Hazards":"All of us in the circus were there because we needed to be watched, because we craved that treacherous moment in the limelight. She worked with a net for safety. I wouldn't have asked her to do without one, but we all knew people wanted to see the real danger: if she'd miss the bar. They were waiting for me to make them laugh. They were waiting for her to die."From "Fat Lady to Marry Skeleton Man: Tickets 25 Cents":"I don't know if we were blessed or cursed by genetics. We love our bodies, they earned us a living for many years, but others feel they are acceptable only in a sideshow. Yet where did they expect sideshow performers to go? We can't evaporate, though Errol might come close." Teresa Milbrodt is the author of a short story collection, Bearded Women: Stories, a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, and a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Nimrod, Triquarterly, North American Review, Crazyhorse, The Cream City Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, CutBank, and Sycamore Review, among other literary magazines. Her work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University.