A scintillating collection of 56 short fictions by one of the genre’s most daring exponents, whose economy of words cloaks her subtlety and power. Tania Hershman’s work is powerful, spiky and off-beat but with a distinct warmth and affection for her subjects.

My Mother Was an Upright Piano builds on the strengths of Tania Hershman's first collection of short stories The White Road (ISBN: 978-1-8447147-5-9) which was commended by the judges of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. Hershman's fiction is inspiring, thought-provoking and witty.

She is able to create characters with distinct voices and explore deep and sometimes disturbing relationships in just a few paragraphs of prose. Her writing style has a lyrical quality and often the meter of her work brings added resonance to her themes.

“The stories succeed precisely where their own characters fail: these deft fictions are full of (and about) the humor and heartbreak made manifest when communication fails.” Roy Kesey, author of Pacazo, All Over, and Nothing in the World