“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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
Sophomore story collection has “a finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary life and delivers trenchant criticisms of human foibles.” —Candace Fertile reviews Last Woman, by Carleigh Baker (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024) $24.95 / 9780771004148
Praise in a minor key for this year’s ‘best of’ in short fiction.
Jessica Poon reviews Best Canadian Stories 2024 by Lisa Moore (editor)
(Windsor: Biblioasis, 2023) $23.95 / 9781771965668
Hopeful pictures of women at midlife and after… Carellin Brooks reviews Your Body Was Made For This, by Debbie Bateman (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2023) $21.95 / 9781553806929
First published May 4, 2018. The Two of Us by Kathy Page Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2016. $19.95 / 9781771960991 Reviewed by Paul Headrick Kathy Page’s fiction has often been the bridesmaid, not the bride. After she was longlisted for the Giller Prize in 2014 for her story collection, Paradise & Elsewhere, Page was longlisted…
Read more #297 From Gallant to Kafka
First published April 25, 2018. The Promise of Water by Judy LeBlanc (Oolichan: 2017) 978-0-88982-320-4 $19.95 tp Review by Caroline Woodward * Judy LeBlanc’s debut collection evokes a tangible sense of place—Vancouver Island—where the sweet fragrance of cedar mingles with the murky odours of damp mould and stale cigarette smoke can be washed away by…
Read more #293 Emotional time bombs
Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine by Meghan Bell (editor) and curated by the Growing Room Collective: Meghan Bell, Terri Brandmueller, Candace Fertile, Taryn Hubbard, Chelene Knight, Lindsay Glauser Kwan, Cara Lang, Alissa McArthur, Navneet Nagra, Bonnie Nish, Rachel Thompson, Kayi Wong, and Lisa Xing Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915402 Reviewed…
Read more #168 Forty years of making room
Victoria’s Most Haunted: Ghost Stories from BC’s Historic Capital City by Ian Gibbs Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2017 $19.95 / 9781771512138 Reviewed by Peter Grant First published August 13, 2017 * The standard general histories of the Victoria, most of them by popular (non-academic) historians, are now almost half a century old. These are: Derek Pethick’s…
Read more #152 Getting spidey in Victoria
The Summer Book: A Treasury of Warm Tales, Timeless Memories and Meditations on Nature by 24 BC writersby Mona Fertig (editor) Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2017.$24.95 / 9781896949611 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published July 1, 2017 * Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing has gathered 24 warm and poignant summer stories…
Read more #146 Poignant ruminations of summer
Teardown by Clea Young Calgary: Freehand Books, 2016 $19.95 / 9781988298016 Reviewed by Sharon Kurtz First published November 7, 2016 * The twelve stories in Clea Young’s debut collection Teardown are largely concerned with friendship and betrayal. Best friends can become strangers, or worse, sworn enemies. There are childhood friends, jealous friends, friends who sleep…
Read more #37 Short stories of love & betrayal