[ book excerpt: short stories ]
Philip Holden’s “The Strange Machine of Dr Goh,” a story in Heaven Has Eyes (Singapore: Gaudy Boy, 2026), $19.00 / 9781958652220.
Tag: short stories
Lessons learned, relearned
“Lovers of the short story should rush right out and get their hands on Victoria writer Terence Young’s new collection. I was utterly captivated by these stories that gently probe ordinary life with grace and insight.” —Candace Fertile reviews Give Us This Day, by Terence Young (Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2025) $21.95 / 9781773241616
Strange landscapes
Ruminative and speculative, a debut story collection is diverse in subject, time, and character as it ponders “the limits of personal agency to reconcile with landscapes that are altered or altering beyond the capacity of any individual to influence.” —Dana McFarland reviews The Other Shore, by Rebecca Campbell (Hamilton: Stelliform Press, 2025) $21.00 / 9781998466016
West coast character studies
Written “with wit and great insight,” a sophomore story collection often focussed “on women who live in world of uncertainty and stress,” conveys the unsteady state of mind that can occur when there’s always “one more thing to look out for.” —Bill Paul reviews Welcome to the Neighbourhood: Stories, by Clea Young (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2025) $22.99 / 9781487013196
Where change is the only constant
“In a collection that dives again and again into the motivations behind actions that sometimes seem incomprehensible, the author gives us a deeply meaningful way to get lost.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Born of the Storm, by Don McLellan (Vancouver: Page Count Press, 2025) $20.00 / 9781777361617
The ‘capacious, accommodating past’
Shot through with brooding darkness and gothic motifs, a volume features stories that “leave the sense that people’s lives, ordinary people’s lives, can have troubling undercurrents weaving through their very humanity.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews Graveyard Shift at the Lemonade Stand, by Tim Bowling (Calgary: Freehand Press, 2025) $22.95 / 9781990601866
39 good reasons to read
10 poems + 10 personal essays + 10 flash fictions + 9 short stories = 39 strong arguments for reading this appealing volume of literature. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Roots To Branches Volume 3: Federation of British Columbia Writers 2023 Anthology, selected by JJ Lee, Finnian Burnett, Kerry Gilbert, and Norma Dunning (Courtney: Federation of BC Writers Press, 2025) $17.95 / 9781069008701
From A (aliens) to Z (zombies)
At its best, a debut collection of 15 stories is deeply unsettling, anxiety-inducing, and memorably character-driven. —Zoe McKenna reviews I Will Wander On: Terrifying Tales of Life, Love, & Death, by Ron Prasad (Acheson: iUniverse, 2024) $30.95 / 9781663266477
Diffident souls in liminal states
A baker’s dozen of engrossing stories range broadly—from militaristic dystopias to the Vietnam War—and often portray the volatile dynamics of men in imbalanced relationships. —Theo Dombrowski reviews Unsettling Dreams, by Michael Whatling (Victoria: Mortal Coil Books, 2024) $16.99 / 1777569958
From oat milk to tarot decks
A “wonderfully varied, worthwhile collection” that features 16 stories by new writers and literary heavyweights, BCS25 “is about as solid as short story collections get.”—Jessica Poon reviews Best Canadian Stories 2025, selected by Steven W. Beattie (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2024) $23.95 / 9781771966344
Souls transforming
Masterful debut story collection captures innocence and its loss as well as gradual recoveries from precipitous falls. —Linda Rogers reviews Transactions With the Fallen, by Michael Elcock (Oakville: Rock’s Mills Press, 2024) $25.00 / 9781772443233
‘We slather on American mayo’
Full of “humorous observation and stylistic verve,” this collection of flash fictions and short stores is “contemporary, exuberant, and zany.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Long Swim, by Terese Svoboda (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781625348074
‘One for sorrow / Two for joy’
A debut story collection set in rural Nova Scotia offers a careful examination of the messiness of family dynamics. —Candace Fertile reviews In the Shadow of Crows, by M.V. Feehan (Montreal: Baraka Books, 2024) $19.95 / 9781771863476
With a little help from friends
“That’s what Adderson does best: placing her characters in unsettling situations and then introducing them to a variety of possibilities.” —Bill Paul reviews A Way to be Happy: Stories, by Caroline Adderson (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2024) $22.95 / 9781771966221
A ‘unique slice of Canadiana’
Debut story collection balances “visually rich absurdity … and the general malaise of youth with admirable, poetic flair.” —Jessica Poon reviews Hello, Horse: Stories, by Richard Kelly Kemick (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2024) $22.95 / 9781771966078
Indigi-queer philosophy 101
Debut story collection by celebrated young author reveals him as “fully in control of his voice, confident of his reach, and utterly fearless.” —Daniel Gawthrop reviews coexistence, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, 2024) $27.95 / 9780735242036
Cruising, laughing, dying (and Liberace)
Reissued story collection features a “confident gay voice, full of quips and sharply off-kilter but richly descriptive comments that stay on the literary side of arch.” —Drew Rowsome reviews Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness, by Guy Babineau (Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2024) $24.95 / 9781770867499
A ‘fine calibration of absurdity and reality’
“Sentence by sentence, Lacroix is helping to keep literature weird, just the way it should be. Weird is good; this book is weird; this book is good.” —Jessica Poon reviews How It Works Out, by Myriam Lacroix (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2024) $32.00 / 9780385698405
The times and their tenor
A “bubbly sensibility” blends well with a sobriety in stories that address “the serious matters of our loves and our times.” —Carellin Brooks reviews Disembark, by Jen Currin (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2024) $22.99 / 9781487011895
Dealbreakers and other heartaches
Pervaded with sadness, a novelist’s sobering debut story collection examines the disappointments of romantic relationships. —Candace Fertile reviews Death by a Thousand Cuts: Stories, by Shashi Bhat (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024) $24.95 / 9780771095115