We're Not Rich by Sue Murtagh (Nimbus Publishing) I loved this debut collection and wrote about it for The Seaboard Review earlier this year. Below is a short excerpt of my review. You can read the rest of it here. As many of my favourite story collections do, We’re Not Rich examines the lives of ordinary people … Continue reading Nova Scotia Short Story Collections: Sue Murtagh, Carol Bruneau, Amanda Peters, Chris Benjamin, and M.V. Feehan
Two Newfoundland novels with a cast of male characters. Vigil takes on the small town, working class life, while Hides takes on middle class families from St. John's. Neither of them show a clear pathway to happiness and success, but both excel at the use of language and humour to tell their stories. Vigil: Stories … Continue reading Breakwater Books: Susie Taylor and Rod Moody-Corbett
Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat The stories in Death by a Thousand Cuts are devastating, funny, and completely accessible. She makes reading feel easy and then drops a thought bomb on you that makes you realize how intentionally-crafted these stories are. In Dealbreaker, Asha is trying to find a partner through online … Continue reading From the Library: Shashi Bhat, Chelsea Wakelyn, and Lisa Brideau
The following three books include a short story collection, a novel translated from French, and a novel in verse. Biblioasis books continue to delight me! Cocktail by Lisa Alward (short stories) It's been several months since I read this book, but it was one of the best short story collections I read this year so … Continue reading Three from Biblioasis: Lisa Alward, Catherine Leroux, and Jason Guriel
No One Knows About Us by Bridget Canning This is Canning's third book, and first collection of short stories. I loved her novels, The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes and Some People's Children, so I had high expectations for her short stories. Happily, they measured up. I didn't really have any doubts that they would. … Continue reading Two from Breakwater Books: Bridget Canning and Willow Kean
I feel like I have some pretty major loose ends to tie up - good books I read last year that I didn't end up writing about. Why am I able to get my thoughts down about some books and not others? Why do some books get pushed to the back burner while others get … Continue reading (Fabulous) Loose Ends from 2022
Fans of Alexander Macleod's short stories have been waiting for this book to come out since his last story collection Light Lifting, in 2010 (which became a Giller Prize nominee). Like in Light Lifting, the stories in Animal Person are rich enough to keep us satisfied with re-reading until the next collection, even if it … Continue reading Alexander MacLeod Short Stories: Animal Person
It's Atlantic Book Award season! There are twelve awards under the umbrella of the Atlantic Books Awards. To see all the nominated books, authors, illustrators, and publishers visit atlanticbookawards.ca. And you can follow along on Twitter @AtlBookAwards. Happily, the short fiction titles are from a few of my favourite independent publishers. Chemical Valley by David … Continue reading Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction: David Huebert, Amber McMillan, and Claire Wilkshire
After a bit of a wild ride in Jeff Bursey's last book, I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. But he's shown himself to be wonderfully versatile, and has written a (more) "mainstream" collection of short stories. (Like Unidentified Man at Left of Photo, An Impalpable Certain Rest is published by corona\samizdat, which … Continue reading An Impalpable Certain Rest by Jeff Bursey
As MacLeod has proven before in his stories, he does not shy away from the harsh realities of life. And, as Marcie has already pointed out, Winter Dog is not an easy story to read. But there are so many great reasons you should read it anyway. Like the tender telling of the excited children … Continue reading Alistair MacLeod Short Story: Winter Dog (1981)
Consumed by Ink 