"When Jess was thirteen, her mother went for a walk and never returned. Jess and her older sister never found out what happened. Instead, they did what they hoped their mother might be doing: survive. As soon as she was old enough, Jess fled the small town of Knife River, wandering from girlfriend to girlfriend like a ghost in her own life, adrift and aimless in her attempts to outrun grief and confusion. But one morning, fifteen years later, she...

"Elise Hellman was once heralded by audiences and critics as a "playwright to watch." Then they forgot all about her. When a prestigious theater compaun expectedly offers her a generous commission to write a new play, she has an opportunity to turn her career around. With sixty-five days left until her deadline, Elise starts scribbling a few pages of stream-of-consciousness first thing every morning as a way to get over her writer's block - a technique...