Author: Jennifer Hudak
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A Gardener Teaches His Son to Enrich the Soil and Plan for the Future by Jennifer Hudak
A funny and compelling take on the zombie apocalypse, as a boy learns to provide for the survivors. There are so many questions after this story: Lace up your boots, son, and grab your gloves. It’s time I took you out to the garden. Those green beans you’re eating right now? They didn’t come from…
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Lisa’s Garden by Jennifer Hudak
This is a weird little fable, and Hudak’s language is so visual – horrifying and lovely in equal amounts. I would love to see this turned into a short film, I think it would translate beautifully. …her father wrested the phone from her and hurled it across the living room, where it hit Lisa in…
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The Last Time Gladys Howled At the Moon by Jennifer Hudak
This story has followed me around since I read it: Gladys begins life as a wolf, but turns into a human in a fantastic, melancholy and thoughtful use of metaphor: Gladys was approaching her first heat when she shed her fur and lost her tail. The transformation was unintentional, and unwanted. When she awoke in…
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The Colonists by Jennifer Hudak
The narrator of this story sees a legendary figure propped up at a watering hole – the only survivor of some terrifying incident. This story isn’t only about space exploration and aliens though — Hudak is writing about humankind’s relationship with nature from the beginning: You have to understand, there was nothing on that planet…
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The Weight of it all by Jennifer Hudak
This 2022 story about a spirit who inhabits the mind and body of a woman with an eating disorder is devastating. I was in tears by the end. If you read one story by Hudak, make it this one: Elizabeth is the first person to notice I’m inside her. “Tell me how to do it,”…
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Holding Patterns by Jennifer Hudak
On some planet in the future, society is struggling to keep the last remaining trees alive. Narrator Leslie’s friend Xander is a rebel with a big idea. This is a perfect science fiction story — adventure and wonder, strange landscapes, but themes and ideas that are all about the here and now. …the trees look…
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Little Fish, Big Fish by Jennifer Hudak
This story is a metaphor that can be parsed a bunch of different ways. Since I read it I’ve thought of it as an allegory for womanhood, but also for the difficulty of leaving home, and the pull that a small town has on those who get out. At any rate, it’s haunting and will…
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The Shortlist for May 2, 2025
Short Stories by Susie Boyt, Jennifer Hudak, Will Dowd, Angela Liu, C. Christine Fair, Tatum Ozment, and Anika Hickman
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Written on the Subway Walls by Jennifer Hudak
Hudak’s story is tender and moving, especially for a story that’s told from the perspective of an inanimate object. It also sent me to learning a bunch about the Erie Canal: When machinery cleaved rock and stone, I was born. When steel scraped against soil, creating open space where there had been only darkness, the…
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Echo Syndrome by Jennifer Hudak
Echo Syndrome is a sci-fi story about a condition that causes people to split into multiples. I won’t write more because the weirdness is part of the allure. I loved this story: When my daughter climbs in the car, there’s three of her. They shouldn’t all fit in the passenger seat, but they overlap each…