Winner of:
Ploughshares, 2015 John C. Zacharis Award Stories in The Missing Woman circle around women who are either literally missing - a mother in rehab, a daughter never born - or who are missing some metaphorical piece of themselves. A father tries to convince his uncompromising, anorexic daughter to want to live, a single woman lures men to her bed only to abandon them, and a marriage is shaken by a search party for a woman who's disappeared. Burns asks questions about balance - safety with adventure, dreams with practicality, grief with joy - and challenges the reader to take a journey, make choices...