An actress visits a bishop she knew in her college years and gives him the kiss he didn't have the nerve to ask for fifty years ago; a retired diplomat encounters a female colleague he served with years ago in Cambodia and learns an unsuspected secret; an aspiring skater is taken up by a former Canadian champion and has to decide what price he is prepared to pay for his assistance; a terrified young native boy agrees to take on at the last moment the leading role in a musical he has written at his high school; a drama critic ponders his involvement with student actors; an embittered old woman discovers a grandson she didn't know existed; two well-known actors find themselves playing opposite each other in a Shakespeare comedy and wonder whether it will rekindle their old romance; two middle-aged art historians meet in Hong Kong and consider the possibility of a mariage blanc; a successful female academic is confronted by the daughter she abandoned in infancy. These are some of the situations Martin Hunter explores in this collection of short stories whose dates cover a period of fifty years and a variety of settings around the globe. A few famous characters make brief cameo appearances: Federico Fellini, Martha Graham, Anthony Perkins. Hunter's characters are mostly artists trying to work their way through the tensions posed by the conflicts between their professional and emotional lives. Their situations are often comic as they struggle to make choices for themselves and those they care about.

Martin Hunter was born in Toronto. On his graduation from the University of Toronto he joined the Department of External Affairs, and later had a career in business before returning to his first love, the theatre. He served as artistic director of Hart House Theatre at U of T in the seventies. Active as a director and as a playwright, he has written for many magazines and produced a number of programs for CBC radio. His first book, Romancing the Bard, was published in 2001.

Martin Hunter's profile page

• Short-listed, ReLit Award (Short Fiction)