[2] After graduating from Northwestern University, Hughes moved to New York and in 1995 started a job as an intern at The Paris Review before being hired there full-time later that year.
[2][5] Hughes left the position after only one year, when the (newly created) Board of Directors did not renew her contract,[4][6] appointing Philip Gourevitch.
[7][8] After leaving The Paris Review, Hughes founded A Public Space, a nonprofit quarterly English-language literary and arts magazine based in New York City, in 2006.
[10][11] Leslie Jamison, Nam Le, Jamel Brinkley, and Jamil Jan Kochai also debuted in the magazine.
In 2007, Hughes was co-curator with Peter Conroy and Jake Perlin of the Between the Lines arts festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.