GIRLS OF A CERTAIN AGE

Lorrie Moore meets Ottessa Moshfegh in this darkly playful and subversive debut story collection exploring the many impossible choices that accompany 21st century femaleness.

Adelmann's debut work, GIRLS OF A CERTAIN AGE, is sharp poignant, and timely; featuring fifteen stories exploring the complexities of friendship and loneliness, the gray areas of sex and relationships, and war as it's experienced by those left at home. Many of the stories are about deeply female issues—abortion, abuse, breast cancer—yet Adelmann handles this heavy material with a light touch. Work from the collection has appeared or is forthcoming in The Indiana Review, The Threepenny Review, and Epoch, among others.

Adelmann is working in the tradition of Lorrie Moore and Grace Paley—with contemporaries including Ottessa Moshfegh, Adelle Waldman, and Kristen Roupenian. From a woman who kills her abusive boyfriend's dog to a lesbian couple reveling in the adoration of men, Adelmann's stories are energetic, emotional, and darkly funny.

Maria Adelmann received her BA in English and Psychology from Cornell University and her MFA in Fiction from UVA where she won the Balch Prize for the short story. She has also published humor pieces and essays in the likes of McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Chad Harbach's MFA VS. NYC, where her essay “Basket Weaving 101” garnered special mentions in Dwight Garner's New York Times review and other places. She is thirty three and lives in Baltimore.