Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023 • One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023 • One of the Globe 100's Best Books of 2023“To say Heighton is an immensely talented writer is true enough but insufficient ... As good a writer as Canada has ever produced.”—National PostThe unforgettable last collection by the bestselling author of The Shadow BoxerA man recalls his father's advice on how to save a drowning person, but struggles when the time comes to use it. A wife’s good deed leaves a couple vulnerable at the moment when they’re most in need of security—the birth of their first child. Newly in love, a man preoccupied by accounts of freak accidents is befallen by one himself. In stories about love and fear, idealisms and illusions, failures of muscle and mind and all the ways we try to care for one another, Steven Heighton’s Instructions for the Drowning is an indelible last collection by a writer working at the height of his powers.Trade ReviewPraise for Instructions for the Drowning"To read work like Heighton’s knowing that we won’t get more of it [...] inspires fury in all directions. [...] Every story in this collection has 'it,' whatever Heighton decided 'it' would be: pacing that thrills; fragile love and blind hate; descriptions you can smell and taste and hear."—New York Times"Heighton, who died last year at 60, draws on our most vulnerable moments in this moving collection, full of understated tension and exacting detail. The characters feel both recognizable and one-of-a-kind."—New York Times"These stories, by a Canadian novelist, poet, and musician who died last year, peer keenly into the penumbra surrounding death."—New Yorker"Released posthumously, this short-story collection carries serious emotional weight, both for the circumstances of its release and its content. All 11 short stories are gentle, profound examinations of the human condition, and are a fitting bookend to Heighton’s remarkable career."—Globe and Mail"To create so many small worlds and characters that feel so real and populate is an act of transcendence. To do it well is to offer a gift. In Instructions, the late Steven Heighton has managed both, and the gift is ours."—Globe and Mail“As these stories demonstrate, human life is a means of exploration and celebration, threaded through with darkness and loss. In the midst of death, Heighton seems to say, we are in life: it should be savoured.”—Toronto Star"In Instructions for the Drowning, however, he uses his poet’s precision, his depth as a novelist, and his intimacy as a memoirist to give us a glimpse of the closure he may have hoped for—for himself, for his characters, and also for his readers."—The Walrus"Heighton keeps us afloat in the depths of Instructions’ themes with his truly brilliant writing which is at turns poetic, curious, compassionate and very, very funny."—Winnipeg Free Press“Steven Heighton has left us with a very strong final collection of short stories. I enjoyed every moment of reading Instructions for the Drowning, with each story shedding light on different parts of the human condition.”—Miramichi Reader"Heighton has left an indelible mark on the realm of Canadian words and letters, with his poetry, fiction and nonfiction. This collection further solidifies his importance to Canadian Literature."—The Quarantine Review"Heighton’s almost preternatural ability to recognize what to include and what to leave out of a particular piece is most apparent in his poetry and his short fiction, where compression and precision of language combine to create meaning."—That Shakespearean Rag"A remarkable book by an unparalleled literary talent."—Steven Beattie, Quill & Quire (starred)"Heighton will go down as one of the brightest stars in Canadian literary history."—FreeFall Magazine"Masterful ... the Joycean stories collected in Instructions for the Drowning are searing reminders: that the other side of rage is a vale of tears."—Foreword Reviews (starred)"Instructions for the Drowning is a short story collection explores themes of love and fear, delusion and idealism and the ironic ways we come up short despite trying our very best."—CBC Books"As Instructions for the Drowning pulls readers into life’s most vulnerable moments, the power and depth of Heighton’s talents shine through each page."—Toronto Life"In these 11 expertly constructed and memorable short stories, he excels at capturing his subjects at moments of maximum stress, in the process illuminating different aspects of the human character."—Shelf Awareness“As a poet and later as fiction writer Steven Heighton had this stunning range of voice in his stories. He would go anywhere. He always surprised you. His death as a still young writer is a tragedy and a great loss. He was a writer who grew so much with each book. You could always witness it happening.”—Michael Ondaatje, author of Warlight and The English Patient"Steven Heighton is one of our most ethical, profound writers. These stories face delusion and illumination, rebellion and surrender, they shock with their beauty and their understanding. The characters, living and dead, are gatherers of knowledge yet the deepest parts of themselves come alive in all they cannot know. Heighton leaves us an unforgettable work that, through its rigour and exactitude, finds within itself a desperately moving liberation."—Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

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Book SynopsisA delightfully frightful collection of spooky stories set across Canada, appropriate for all ages and perfect for reading aloud around the campfire.In this spine-chilling companion to Campfire Stories of Western Canada and Ghostly Campfire Stories of Western Canada, Barbara Smith takes readers on a cross-country trip of sinister spirits, urban myths, haunted houses, ghostly shipwrecks, and other unexplained phenomena, just in time for camping season. With over forty hair-raising tales set in every province and territory, Campfire Stories from Coast to Coast combines fact and legend, with truly terrifying results. From an ancient spirit that haunts a Cape Breton lake to a Manitoba hitchhiker who encounters a UFO to a Tofino surfer who receives a fateful warning from a stranger, this collection is a celebration of all things creepy and Canadian. Ideal for camping trips, slumber parties, or lonely nights when you just want to scare yourself silly, Campfire Stories from Coast to Coast is sure to become a family favourite.

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Book SynopsisGisèle Villeneuve’s short stories test the elastic pull between passion and terror. For inspiration, Villeneuve turned to her personal history to examine what lures urban dwellers outdoors, to test themselves against peaks and valleys. Using the overarching metaphor of mountain climbing, she plays with form, language, and narrative to reveal our fears, our loves, our passions. Rising Abruptly is a perfect companion for anyone who likes to travel, loves a climber, or simply glories in the allure of the mountains. "Even the unassuming day trips deliver their moments. The whiteouts. The going off route. Scrambling back down on rock coated with verglas. Neither of us liking it one bit, but resolutely descending. Focusing on the moment that could change everything with one misstep. The four-hour scramble that begins on a sunny summer morning, stretching into the night to a seventeen-hour epic. There are such days, and they can happen an hour’s drive from Calgary on a relatively small mountain. Back to comfort, talking up a storm. Doing the post-mortem. Watching the tempest, still so real in our minds, relief and excitement printed on our windburned faces. Together, building story, across time and across silences. Back to comfort then acquires a whole new meaning when you bear the land deep in the bone." From “Assiniboine Crossroads”Trade Review"The seven quirky stories in Gisèle Villeneuve’s new collection, Rising Abruptly, all have mountains at their heart.... The characters’ relationship with mountains evolves throughout the stories, creating an arc that models a romantic relationship: infatuation, the conflict between independence and commitment, and the acceptance of love coupled with death. Rising Abruptly is a literary ode to climbers and the mountains that captivate them, and presents a fascinating portrait of passion for the high peaks." -- Karen Ackland * Foreword Magazine *"Sept nouvelles impressionnantes, écrites dans une langue irréprochable, qui donnent — ou ne donnent pas — envie d’affronter les toits du monde." * Lettres québécoises *# 5 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, April 23, 2017"Mountain climbing is a metaphor in the stories found in her new collection, "Rising Abruptly", which use form, language, and narrative to deal with raw emotions like fear, love, and passion... Villeneuve's stories convey to readers a sense of the dual nature of the mountains, which are at once hard, difficult, and intimidating, but also fragile. In fact, it is precisely the juxtaposition of two opposites that often fuels Villeneuve's writing." Prairie Books Now, Fall/Winter 2016 -- Paula F. Kirman * Prairie Books Now *These are not your typical alpinist accounts. The climbers are mothers, sisters and sexagenarians—the stories often focused on loved ones or filtered through the lenses of emotion and heightened perception. Desire, dread and madness run like an undertow, often threatening to overtake the characters… These stories can be emotionally wrought, as off-kilter as their mountains, yet Villeneuve invites us into this thorny, exposed terrain with confidence. As a climber I found it gratifying to see women’s desires so strongly expressed. Rising Abruptly is a complex, satisfying collection that bears reading again.” -- Elaine Morin, * Alberta Views *Table of ContentsNuit Blanche with Gendarme Jagged Little Peak Benighted on Mighty Mount Royal Kinabalu Realm of the Cold Onion Nepal High Assiniboine Crossroads Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisI woke up with Moses Henry’s boot holding open my jaw and my right eye was looking into his gun barrel. I heard the slow words, “Take. It. Back.” I know one thing about Moses Henry; he means business when he means business. I took it back and for the last eight months I have not uttered Annie Mukluk’s name. In strolls Annie Mukluk in all her mukiness glory. Tonight she has gone traditional. Her long black hair is wrapped in intu’dlit braids. Only my mom still does that. She’s got mukluks, real mukluks on and she’s wearing the old-style caribou parka. It must be something her grandma gave her. No one makes that anymore. She’s got the faint black eyeliner showing off those brown eyes and to top off her face she’s put pretend face tattooing on. We all know it’ll wash out tomorrow. — from "Annie Muktuk" When Sedna feels the urge, she reaches out from the Land of the Dead to where Kakoot waits in hospital to depart from the Land of the Living. What ensues is a struggle for life and death and identity. In “Kakoot” and throughout this audacious collection of short stories, Norma Dunning makes the interplay between contemporary realities and experiences and Inuit cosmology seem deceptively easy. The stories are raucous and funny and resonate with raw honesty. Each eye-opening narrative twist in Annie Muktuk and Other Stories challenges readers’ perceptions of who Inuit people are.Trade Review"Dunning’s stories, nuanced and deeply felt, reach deep into the heart of what it means to be Inuit, into the sacred place where the songs of the north are still sung, visions are still seen, and the spirits still speak. From this place, it is possible to laugh at those who come to destroy. From this place, dignity is maintained and the connection to the turning of the seasons is unbroken. Together with grief for what has been lost, there is power and light in these stories." [Full review at https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/annie-muktuk-and-other-stories/] -- Kristine Morris * Foreword Magazine *"When I read the article, 'What inspired her was getting mad,' about the story behind Norma Dunning’s debut collection, Annie Mukluk and Other Stories, I was not surprised. Acts of justice and revenge factor throughout the book, propelling the stories so terrifically. Dunning wrote her stories in response to ethnographic representations of Inuit people that neglected to show them as actual people, and the result is a book that’s really extraordinary. Because her people are so real, people who laugh, and joke, and drink, and have sex (and they have a lot of sex)." [Full post at http://picklemethis.com/2017/08/02/annie-muktuk-and-other-stories-by-norma-dunning] -- Kerry Clare * Pickle Me This *"Although [Dunning] deals with serious contemporary realities for Inuit people, she manages to work in moments of humour that flesh out her characters, making them fully realized and complex.” -- Matthew Stepanic * Where.ca *# 10 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, September 24, 2017# 6 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, October 01, 2017# 10 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, October 22, 2017"A successful short story takes us to unfamiliar places, and the 16 stories in this collection certainly fill that bill. It’s a journey deep into Inuit life, with tales of Inuk of all shapes, genders and ages. The title story is at turns funny, violent and cunning: Jimmy tries to convince best friend Moses to stay away from the glorious Annie Muktuk, an arnaluk (naughty woman, according to the glossary) who will cause him grief. [Full article at https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2017/11/24/new-reads-for-short-story-lovers.html] -- Sarah Murdoch * Toronto Star *"This whole collection is fantastic, but the story with the bad trip is 'Husky', inspired by the life of trapper and HBC Factor "Husky" Harris whose visit to Winnipeg with his three Inuit wives, Tetuk, Alaq and Keenaq, is written about in history books. In the story, naturally, the group and their children make an impression at their hotel, and the racism of hotel staff leads to a fight that lands Husky in the hospital. The violence doesn't end there and the women are further victimized—but then they enact the most beautiful justice." [Full article at https://49thshelf.com/Blog/2017/08/14/The-13-Worst-Holidays-in-Canadian-Literature] -- Kerry Clare * 49th Shelf *"Inuk writer Norma Dunning’s debut collection passed under the radar of the big awards despite being the year’s best short fiction collection. The stories infuse Inuit myth with reality, explore the effects of colonialism, and delve into settler-writer portrayals of Inuit, all told with heart and humour that is infectious." Michael Melgaard, on his No. 1 book of 2017, [Article at http://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/np99-24-2-best-books-of-2017] -- Michael Melgaard * National Post *"I love Norma Dunning’s Annie Muktuk and Other Stories. The similarities are striking between Māori and Inuit ways of referencing ancestors, landscape, relationships, spirituality, mythology, and the social cultural political issues we face as tāngata whenua (Indigenous people). Her representations of trauma, love and grief with clever narrative twists are fantastic, as are the acts of revenge. She writes of sacred ancestral knowledge, informed by ancient spirits." [Full article at http://press.futurefire.net/2018/02/interview-with-iona-winter.html] -- Iona Winter“Fiction solves the problem of other minds, by cutting readers directly in on the thought and being of other people. If it has a moral purpose it is this: to give us empathetic understanding of other people, many of them very different from ourselves, in gender, and culture, and race…. I liked this book very much, for its rich characterization, for its liveliness in dialogue, and most of all for the window it presents on another form of consciousness, one to which a unique world of spiritual beings is very near.” -- Susan Haley * Fiddlehead *"Norma Dunning's debut short story collection is sensitive, intelligent and intense. Right from the first story, 'Kabloona Red,' in which an Inuit women knocks back cheap red wine whenever her white husband is away, Dunning writes about authentic experience. The narrators are first person or closely focused third, so the Inuit characters' confusion and pain as they struggle to maintain individual and cultural identifies are felt directly.... Strong currents of anger and courage propel the Inuit characters. They are survivors.... I loved this book." -- Candace Fertile * Alberta Views *# 7 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, April 15, 2018# 9 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, May 06, 2018"Annie Muktuk and Other Stories expounds on Inuit women empowerment. The collection comprises both happy and sad stories, a mixture of present day and the past, and has a touch of humour." [Full article at http://www.windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/indigenous-artists-break-free-of-the-limits-of-the-small-box/] -- Shari Narine * Windspeaker *"As the author's bio explains, Dunning was raised in Southern Canada, but 'When she began to write about her own ancestors, her Inukness became evident.' It is indeed evident in these stories… It is a thoroughly contemporary collection, however – the literary equivalent of the Annie Pootoogook portrait that graces its cover." -- Jade Colbert * Globe and Mail *"Norma Dunning’s debut short story collection takes us out of our mundane lives into one that is raucous, humorous and spiritual.... Dunning has written a powerful book, the short stories depicting the way of her people, how they once lived and now live in the presence of the white world. She regales her audience with tales funny and sad, harrowing yet uplifting. But most of all she places the stories on the page to show that she and her people matter.... They are full of Native humour, full of knowing. They are stories full of survival..." February 27, 2019 [ Full review at http://www.prairiefire.ca/annie-muktuk-and-other-stories-by-norma-dunning/#more-4178] -- Mary Barnes# 5 on Edmonton's Bestselling Books list; Fiction, December 01, 2019# 7 on Edmonton's Bestselling Books list; Fiction, December 08, 2019Table of Contents1 Kabloona Red 7 Elipsee 35 Kakoot 57 Annie Muktuk 65 Manisatuq 73 Qunutuittuq 79 Itsigivaa 81 Iniqtuiguti 85 Inurqituq 89 Tutsiapaa 93 Nakuusiaq 97 Qaninngilivuq 101 Samagiik 105 Husky 131 My Sisters and I

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Book SynopsisSecrets aren’t good for families. — from “Big Luck Island” In The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories—a collection of new, delightful, distinctive short stories—everyone is missing something or someone; every family is riven by secrets and absences. From “The Remedy,” a tale of revenge and justice, to “The Smart Sisters,” a story of tricky family dynamics, Coulter’s narratives portray relationships, loss, and what we learn in the aftermath of death. Ghosts, echoes, memories, regrets...Coulter’s characters are haunted in many ways. With style and sweep that hints at Lynn Coady and Alice Munro, Myrl Coulter is a strong, fresh voice in contemporary Canadian fiction.Trade Review[T]he vividness of Coulter’s hard-luck characters and their situations commands attention. For the second half, Coulter changes tracks with two longer stories that experiment with tone, structure, and perspective. “The Smart Sisters” is a rollicking depiction of three struggling sisters.... “Limbo,” narrated by a “reluctant haunter”...is divided into six captivating tales that recount the decades after his death for those close to him. Gentle, comic, and uplifting, the story’s craft perfectly complements its humanity and skillfully closes this promising collection." [Full review at https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-77212-328-9] * Publishers Weekly *# 1 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, September 24, 2017“… this collection reads a bit like a mystery novel with subtle connections between characters and stories…told intriguingly and effectively…” -- Breanna Mroczek * Avenue Magazine *The way Coulter uses the short story medium to loosely tie the collection together adds an enthralling quality... Coulter wanted to showcase that the things which tear us apart — depression, anger, death, suicide — are seldom talked about, or even written about... The Left-Handed Dinner Party ends on a note of fleeting happiness that alludes to a place of resolution." [Full article at https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/03/left-handed-dinner-party/] -- Enrique Marroquin * The Gateway *"What interests Coulter is families, and the endlessly paradoxical combinations of love and resentment, security and entrapment, which families offer. Some of the stories are connected by their characters, and the novella, “Limbo,” consists of a series of stories about the same family. Alcoholism, adultery, abuse, parental abandonment, trips into an uncertain future, suicide, secrecy, car crashes, sibling alienation—these are the stock-in-trade of Coulter’s families." [Full review at http://canlit.ca/article/space-and-time/] -- Paul Denham * Canadian Literature 236 *Table of Contents1 Grad School 2 The Remedy 3 The Left-Handed Dinner Party 4 The Scream 5 Uncanny 6 Estate Planning 7 The Ballad of Jake and Janet 8 Big Luck Island 9 The Smart Sisters 10 Limbo -Jean’s Slice -Orphan Sister -The Viewfinder -Willpower -The Dead List -The Beer Tent Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisThese twelve new short stories from Astrid Blodgett explore the consequences of grief and denial and single moments that change perceptions, lives, and attachments forever. Crisp prose and unexpected plot twists move relatable characters through vivid outdoor settings and interior depths. A child negotiates adult behaviour when an injured dog is put down. An older sister bribes a younger one to go on her first date. A family canoe trip launches from Disaster Point. A woman wants to hurl her granddaughter’s birthday cake out the window. This Is How You Start to Disappear shows all the heartbreaking ways we evolve when coping with change or trauma.Trade Review“This Is How You Start to Disappear is for readers who revel in stories told with both skill and passion, stories with twists, stories without ready resolutions.” Rona Altrows, author of At This Juncture"In these precisely paced and deceptively dark stories, Astrid Blodgett sweeps out the dust bunnies of contempt and devastation from the junk drawers of her characters’ family homes. These stories do what short stories do best: every word flexes its muscles, every detail teeters on an iceberg of deeper meaning. This Is How You Start To Disappear is a complex and satisfying compilation of unsteady bridge crossings between our childhood and adult selves." Susan Sanford Blades, author of Fake It So Real“This collection is an intimate embrace of the moments and memories that define us. With pitch perfect prose and heaps of tension, Blodgett pierces so deep into her characters’ hearts and minds you feel as if you breathe their same air. Beautifully imagined and bursting with compassion, every story is a stunner!” Fran Kimmel, author of The Shore Girl and No Good Asking“With compassion and acute observation, Astrid Blodgett writes about events, large and seemingly small, that can change the trajectory of a life. Familial fractures spread like cracks in winter ice as Blodgett investigates those moments that divide her characters’ lives into “before” and “after,” whether they are loyalty tests one sister demands of another or a father so preoccupied with his new relationship that he can’t see his young daughter’s struggles at a skating party. At times, Blodgett’s characters recognize a life-changing event only after it has swept past them, but the reverberations will be felt for decades to come. These finely wrought, multigenerational stories pivot around such moments, as ordinary working people cope with the unexpected tragedy and dislocating circumstances of their unfolding lives.” Rachel Rose, Giller-longlisted author of The Octopus Has Three Hearts“Readers will enjoy Astrid Blodgett’s new collection of short stories. Her characters, plots, and incidents have originality and she engages with contemporary social problems, giving psychological depth to the stories.” Michael Trussler, University of Regina“Astrid Blodgett explores intimate relationships, with a focus on family drama and trauma, in 12 absorbing new short stories. As adults, a brother and sister recall the summer that spelled the end of their parents’ marriage. Teen girls at summer camp play a dangerous game that ends in tragedy. And a woman who has already suffered a full share of heartbreak and disappointment in life hits a breaking point when she makes a birthday cake for her granddaughter and the kid’s mother scrapes off the homemade icing and piped-on flowers.” Pat St. Germain, Edmonton Journal, August 12, 2023#5 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, September 3, 2023#8 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, September 10, 2023#1 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, September 17, 2023"In these stories Astrid Blodgett resists flamboyance. But her stories are not quiet. They simmer with a grammar of discontent." W.H. New, The British Columbia Review, September 24, 2023 [Full review at https://thebcreview.ca/2023/09/24/1937-new-blodgett/]#7 on Alberta Fiction Bestsellers list, October 10, 2023#9 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, October 22, 2023#3 on Edmonton Bestsellers list, November 12, 2023"The title of Astrid Blodgett’s latest collection of short stories succinctly describes what could happen to any of us throughout life: we may disappear at the surface, within ourselves, or within relationships.... It’s not often I come across a book of short stories written by the same author where every single story resonates or is worthy of deeper thought or discussion like this one. I’d recommend This Is How You Start to Disappear for a book club or English 101 studies as a model for form, structure and riveting storytelling." Mala Rai, Miramichi Reader, December 31, 2023 [Starred review at https://miramichireader.ca/2023/12/this-is-how-you-start-to-disappear-by-astrid-blodgett/]#4 on Alberta Fiction Bestsellers list, November 2023 https://readalberta.ca/recommendations/bestsellers/alberta-bestsellers-november-2023/#4 on Alberta Fiction Bestsellers list, December 2023 [https://readalberta.ca/recommendations/bestsellers/alberta-bestsellers-december-2023/]Table of ContentsThese People Have Nothing Devil’s Lake Everything’s Fine, Actually Alex and Clayton and Raylene and Me This Will All Be Over Soon The Fainting Game The Kite How to Read Water Dear Hector When Sleep is Easy The Night the Moon Was Bright and We Ate Pigs and Brownies and Drank Fizzy Beer and Didn’t Remember Much at All, in the End The Golden Rice Bowl

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Book SynopsisMontaigne Medal Finalist (Eric Hoffer Awards) The stories in Cretacea and Other Stories from the Badlands mostly take place in hot weather, where dust and sweat envelop everyone and everything. A teenage boy spends a summer with his hard-livin', hard-drinkin', messed up uncle and has to fight for a position in his new, temporary "family." A recent widower gets swept up in the world of the local swingers' scene. A band of misfits struggles to survive at a makeshift commune. An eccentric woman with OCD has a strange fetish that involves the prescription delivery boy. For no particular reason, a fossil-collecting, poetry-reading loner decides to turn sniper and shoot up the town - selecting only non-human targets. Asphyxia games with a sexy transvestite go seriously awry. A distraught man enlists his friendly neighbour in a nighttime river search for his lost daughter. Bored and desperate couples in a trailer park find unique ways to work out their kinks. The plans of a primed-for-action threesome are suddenly derailed when a badly beaten dog is spotted tied up to a parking meter. Fossils and prehistoric sleeping creatures, cattle, rivers, dusty highway gas stations, truck stop diners, guys in small towns with dead-end jobs and unfulfilled dreams, the smell of sage and the sound of cicadas in the air, and redemption is nowhere to be found ... This is not the Alberta world of oil and hockey and wheat, but of people at night, living alternate lives, wearing clothes that usually remain hidden in the depths of closets. When they emerge from these closets wearing these clothes, these shopkeepers, lawyers, and students do things to themselves and each other that it would take Freud to explicate. Everywhere in the valley lies the fear of loneliness, the obsession with desire, and the human fixation with the unknown. Praise for Cretacea & Other Stories from the Badlands: "[I]n Martin West's impressive debut short story collection ... readers will encounter echoes of Flannery O'Connor and Barry Hannah."(Foreword Magazine) "the 11 tales in Martin West's debut collection ... often surprise with strange, startling images." (Alberta Views)

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Book SynopsisMelissa Bull's debut short story collection The Knockoff Eclipse and Other Stories hums with the immediacy of distant and future worlds. Firmly rooted in the streets of Montreal and its many neighbourhoods and subcultures, Bull zooms in on the female experience while playing with societal expectation and literary convention. Spattered with bits of French, many of the stories pull back the covers on the intersection between French and English Canada. In the titular story "The Knockoff Eclipse," we're transported to a future world where women's clothing quite literally advertises their supposed wants and desires. Wanda and Henry meet in an old divebar turned trendy futurist café. "I used to be a model. But I got tired of people looking at me," she tells Henry. The theme of looking or being looked at runs through the entire collection, female bodies and the women who inhabit them must constantly contend with the masculine gaze, which is often internalized in such a way that it seems inescapable. The Knockoff Eclipse is dark like Duras, flippant comme Sagan, with elements of the surreal running through. These stories are modern feminist fables for the reader who is decidedly uninterested in upholding the moral of the story as it's been traditionally told.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of 19 Knives and My White Planet comes a brilliant suite of stories built around music and travel. Whether it's a band coming apart at the ruins of Pompeii, or tours through Napoli's "volcanic dust and volcanic drugs and jackal-headed bedlam and mountains of stinking trash"; or a nostalgic stroll past the homeless in Victoria's inner harbour while "gentle Tunisian techno" rides the breeze, where the addicted populate park benches, as weighted as Shakespearean characters ... "lit rock and tiny chalice hidden under his shirt, get it all, draw every wisp of the wreath and heavy is the head that wears the crown, that lights the lighter." Or it's Steppenwolf or The Youngbloods drifting from a car radio as "an ambulance siren and lights fly our street ... a flashing mime show of grief's rocket." Or, perhaps they're in Iceland, or Denmark, "somewhere seriously lunar and attractive" spending wheelbarrows of cash the record execs didn't give them. Or it's the Viper Room, Sunset Boulevard, a bar in Butte, Montana, or Johnny Cash in Tijuana. The five stories that comprise Czech Techno are replete with the sizzle and jump we have come to expect in a Mark Jarman story - "those shadowbox anthems of lost icy street corners and vanished republics" are on grand display, his herky-jerky emblematic style in full roar. And the quest for love, the matters of the heart, is ever-present, weaving through these stories like a knife blade through sand.

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Book SynopsisStuart Ross's sometimes poignant, sometimes outrageous third story collection deepens his exploration of the possibilities of the short story and narrative. A trio of tales probe fame through the lens of 1960s-70s French pop and disco icon Claude François; legendary Hollywood actor Lee Marvin saves the day, again and again; the citizens of a small town worship an all-knowing potato; a man dons a bib to eat his neighbour's house; a tourist finds both love and a dead frog in Nicaragua; and, in one rather educational anti-story, the author instructs readers in the art of writing the short story. In I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub, Stuart Ross, a veteran of the Canadian literary underground, unleashes his arsenal of pathos, absurdism, humour, and cantankerousness.

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Book SynopsisFinalist, Ottawa Book Award for Fiction 2019Long-Shortlisted, 2019 Relit Award (Short Story Category)Drugs. Violence. Racism. Despair. The tiny, northern town of Fort Fierce has issues in spades, and most of them fester in the high-rise by the lake.In this visceral, emotionally raw, and completely absorbing collection, Carlucci takes his readers through the ravaged history of Franklin Place, from its construction during the Cold War to its demolition decades later. We meet the Franklins themselves, three generations of landlords, each more paranoid and alienated than the last. And we meet their tenants: a drug dealer, a lonely bigot, a political activist, a struggling father, a wandering sex offender, a woman who refuses to give into it all. They wander in and out of each other's lives, with little in common but the building and the mould behind its walls.In The High-Rise in Fort Fierce, Carlucci immerses us in a dim yet eerily familiar world. Love and death, conflict and compromise, fear, determination, and the tense relations between indigenous and settler populations thread the warp and weft of his dark and irrepressible tapestry. We cannot look away.Trade Review"The mess of humanity that resides in The High-Rise in Fort Fierce — the weirdos and the outsiders, the brave and the bewildered, the ruined and the barely redeemed — are transformed through the blast furnace of Paul Carlucci's immense talent into something transfixing, their raw hope and hopelessness depicted unflinchingly. Hard to watch but impossible to look away." -- Zsuzsi Gartner"The High-Rise in Fort Fierce centres on a cursed building in a northern town. A family's toxic tower, once chi-chi real estate but now full of drugged-out pilgrims and mold spores,concealing an underground man deep in a secret doomsday bomb shelter. The Fort Fierce experience is a harrowing headlong rush; picaresque tales touching on race and cash, alcohol and opiates, and the occasional impulsive homicide, all delivered in Paul Carlucci's violent electric prose." -- Mark Anthony Jarman"Like the subterranean enclave that lies beneath its decaying battlements, The High-Rise in Fort Fierce delves into the secretive heart of contemporary masculinity, exposing its ambiguities and fears, its capacity for both violence and tenderness. Noirish and dystopian, Carlucci has a gift for lyrical turns of phrase that are a counterpoint to the grim settings and unfolding drama." -- Kerry-Lee Powell

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Book SynopsisFinalist, City of Vancouver Book Award 2019A man returns to Hoi An in his retirement to compose a poem honouring his parents. Two teenagers, ostracized in a private school, forge an unlikely bond. A son discovers the truth about his father's business ventures and his dreams of success. A young bride, isolated on a remote island with her new husband, finds community in a group of abalone divers.Taking the title for his debut collection of short fiction from the walled palace of Vietnam's Nguyen dynasty, Philip Huynh dives headfirst into the Vietnamese diaspora. In these beautifully crafted stories, crystalline in their clarity and immersive in their intensity, he creates a universe inhabited by the deprivations of war, the reinvention of self in a new and unfamiliar settings, and the tensions between old-world parents and new-world children. Rooted in history and tradition yet startlingly contemporary in their approach, Huynh's stories are sensuously evocative, plunging us into worlds so all-encompassing that we can smell the scent of orange blossoms and hear the rumble of bass lines from suburban car stereos.Trade Review"In The Forbidden Purple City, Huynh gives voice to Vietnamese-Canadian experiences, introduces many readers to a culturally diverse and intriguing history of Vietnam, and does so by crafting stories that are relatable, modern, quietly heartbreaking — and that keep us returning for a second, third and fourth read." * The Winnipeg Free Press *

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Book SynopsisWinner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Speculative FictionA bear runs amok in a luxury hotel. A daily swim at the local pool becomes a question of life or death. The champion of a border wall faces an unexpected adversary.The twelve stories in Different Beasts ask what it means to be both human and monster. Shape-shifting waifs, haunted stuffies, scavenging drones, insectoid demon-gods, and mutant angels all come to life in this wildly imagined debut. As do broken soldiers, disgraced politicians, tired parents, ogres and children, opportunists, and desperate survivors — human beasts each struggling with the animalian aspects of their nature.In this wild, fantastical, viscerally memorable debut, J.R. McConvey explores the power dynamics that undergird social relationships and crystallize into structures of fealty and worship, fear and control, aspiration and desire.Trade Review"Different Beasts made me fall in love with the craft of short stories all over again. This collection took me to places — some uncomfortable, others hearbreaking — that I wasn't expecting to go. This is the work of a writer of beastly talent, vision, and guts." -- Brian Francis, author of Break in Case of Emergency

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Book SynopsisCo-Winner, Margaret Laurence Award for FictionPatricia Robertson’s new collection of short fiction, Hour of the Crab, is a work of insight and mastery, each story demonstrating an original vision, intriguing characters, and sophisticated skill. Readers will travel with Robertson’s vivid characters, sharing their journeys, their challenges, their complicated choices. They will also discover other worlds — from an eleventh-century monastery in France to a near-future British Columbia where apocalyptic wildfires seem to be never-ending. A young woman discovers the corpse of a Moroccan teenager washed up on the beach in southern Spain and sets out to find his family in a gesture that destabilizes her own. An international aid worker shares her house with the very real ghost of a gardener’s boy. The last speaker of a dying Norse-like language carves the words he remembers into the stones of his house. Urgent and evocative, immersed in issues of our time, the stories of Hour of the Crab reveal Robertson’s ability to draw in her readers with the heightened realism of her imagined worlds. Trade Review“Panoramic in scope, precise in detail, stirring in content, Hour of the Crab is exhilarating and poised, a mythos of modern times. Here are fire gods, migration, and extraterrestrial messages, strange spirits and apparitions rendered harrowingly real. Deftly speculative, menacingly real, these stories compel you to change your life.” -- David Huebert, author of Peninsula Sinking“Hour of the Crab is fascinating and dark, playing with the edge of what is real and what could be.” -- Alison Manley * Miramichi Reader *“The stories in Hour of the Crab are compelling, touching on a wide range of human emotions and motivations and told in an interesting and thought-provoking way.” -- Susan Huebert * Winnipeg Free Press *

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Book SynopsisWinner, Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction Long-Shortlisted, ReLit Award (Short Fiction)"You go through life convinced you’re going to get diabetes like your old man and one day you choke to death on chicken gristle, and the autopsy shows your blood sugars were perfect."The seventeen stories in Elaine McCluskey’s latest collection, Rafael Has Pretty Eyes, follow characters who have reached a four-way stop in life; some are deciding whether to follow the signs or defy them; others find a sinkhole forming beneath their feet.A former fast-talking, big-bucks radio host now lives as a divorced payday loaner working in a strip mall; a football wide receiver at a small Canadian university works the night shift as a bouncer while recovering from his third concussion; a well-liked city councilor is arrested on a packed bus. As one character puts it, "life is just one extended series of anecdotes strung together until they kill you."Set in the Maritimes but transcending regional boundaries, McCluskey’s stories are experimental, sometimes provocative, and often about those living on the margins. Smart, compassionate and unsparing, Rafael Has Pretty Eyes explores the absurdity and interconnectedness of a life adrift.Trade Review“Elaine McCluskey's characters leap to life, rendered in the kind of rich, vivid detail that makes you certain you’ve met them somewhere before. Rafael Has Pretty Eyes invites readers to revel in the stories of these artfully crafted characters and to feel every flash of sudden wonder or quiet sorrow. Once you've been drawn into McCluskey's ever-alluring world of words, you won't want to leave.” -- Amy Spurway, author of Crow“Rafael Has Pretty Eyes captures the ennui of our particular real-world moment, while blessedly not bringing up the pandemic. ... an eclectic short story collection.” -- Alison Manley * Atlantic Books Today *“Elaine McCluskey knows she has succeeded if her stories do three things: make you laugh, occasionally make you cry and in the end, surprise you. ... McCluskey succeeds in doing just that in Rafael Has Pretty Eyes.” -- Allison Lawlor * Saltwire *“Rafael Has Pretty Eyes is one of the best collections I’ve read in a decade, so glorious and furious, and I love the raw energy that surges through every story. Reading it is like sticking your tongue into the outlet of another person’s life and feeling the pure current that runs there.” -- Alexander McLeod, author of Animal Person“At the heart of McCluskey’s stories are “underdogs” and “people whom society decides have no business reaching for greatness, no business upsetting the natural order of things” (from “Remember”). In Rafael Has Pretty Eyes, McCluskey proves that she knows how to string it all together, and she reminds us stories can bring us back to life.” -- Marcie McCauley * World Literature Today *

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Book SynopsisFinalist, New Brunswick Book Award (Fiction) and Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short FictionA striking original, deftly humorous collection of stories that considers the quest for truth: how we come to it or alternatively avoid it.A fervently comic debut, The Running Trees leads readers into a series of conversations — through phonelines, acts in a play, and a rewound recording of a police interrogation — to reveal characters in fumbling bouts of brutality, reflection, isolation, and love.The relationship between two siblings disintegrates after one asks the other for the pen; a professor and his former student get drinks years after a "romantic" encounter; a book club meets only to find that they have wildly different opinions about a new memoir about their town; and a long-haired feline contemplates existence and consciousness while his cohabitant licks his own butthole.Whimsical, unconventional, humorous, and always pitch-perfect, The Running Trees explores how we desperately try to communicate with each other amid the gaps in meaning we create.Trade Review“Energetic, often hilarious, and endlessly surprising. Reading this collection feels like eavesdropping on a series of engrossing conversations. McMillan skillfully inhabits the voices of this cast of characters, in situations that range from the suspenseful and unsettling to the deliciously absurd. The people in this book are flawed and human, prickly and curious, and remarkably distinct. Through their questions, complaints, arguments, and apologies, The Running Trees explores the intricacies of human interaction, and the difference between what we say and what we mean.” -- Shashi Bhat, author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth“An anthology of unique stories that ... delve into the chaotic, tangled aspects of imperfect yet quintessentially human characters. A brisk read that lingers long in the memory, The Running Trees is highly recommended.” * Midwest Book Review *

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Book SynopsisIn the stories in Winning Chance, Katherine Koller explores second chances, how we find them, and how we find the courage to take them. Whether they are contractors running into an ex while on the job, a busy mother pursuing community theatre, or a family building an illegal ice rink after an environmental collapse, Katherine Koller has created empathetic portraits of characters searching to connect.

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Book SynopsisThe stories in Vermin are linked by themes of loss, longing and music: a restaurant server in a Tofino restaurant reflects on the nature of men in her past and present; a woman prepares to marry a brooding artist unpopular with both her parents and her small town community; a new homeowner has strange encounters witha previous owner who is struggling to let go. Stories in this collection have appeared in Joyland, The Saturday Evening Post, Room, The Antigonish Review and other journals and anthologies.Trade Review"These are well-made stories that offer convincingly conflicted characters. A hospitable, entertaining read. Alberta Viewspart of the strength in Hahnels often funny, occasionally sad and always intriguing collection is that they take readers in all sorts of directions. Calgary HeraldVermin is an immersive collection of short stories that demonstrate a notable breadth of talented writing. Anne Logan, Ive Read ThisHahnel is keenly aware of the daily suffering of life, and once in a while, of the sought-for moments of forgetfulness of a troubled place, or of a desperate, short-lived bliss. But there are no lyric flights here, the prose is unadorned, straight-forward and clear, what is unsaid often more important than what is, and her characters are on the move, often aimlessly, from one unsatisfactory situation to another, while their friends become drifters and vanish and reappear and vanish again. These are touching, gentle stories about the lives of women and girls who arent lucky in their beginnings or backgrounds, nor particularly wise, and yet, their stories, with their rare and tiny triumphs, resonate. Sharon Butala, author of Season of Fury and WonderWith remarkable range, Lori Hahnel captures women who experience disappointment and alienation, heartbreak and oppression. The delight of the collection comes in the way Hahnels fully realized protagonists a lively cast of outsiders and rebels continue, despite lifes adversity, to find the strength to live authentically. VERMIN is a treasure from one of Albertas bright lights. Angie Abdou, author of Home Ice: Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey MomIn these stories, Lori Hahnel reimagines the subject of love. In the time of parasites her flawed and transient characters attempt to find coherence in their lives. Hahnel never overstays or overplays. With the sure hand and clear eye of a surgeon, she cuts to the quick, dissects and reveals moments of truth in the lies people tell each other and in the lies they tell themselves. Writing with classical dispassion, she doesnt moralize, disapprove or romanticize. Instead, she sees and selects and exposes the wilderness of the human heart. Cecelia Frey, author of Lovers Fall Back To Earth and recipient of the Golden Pen Lifetime Achievement Award"

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Book SynopsisA man runs for his life from the promise of death held by trees; a lost VHS tape offers footage of a lost, grisly history; a diaspora clings to magical shards of home and more in this collection of genre fiction by authors from across the Canadian Prairies. Adam Petrash is an author and editor from Winnipeg. He is the co-editor of the speculative fiction anthology, Parallel Prairies: Stories of Manitoba Speculative Fiction, and the author of a novella, The Ones to Make it Through. His work has appeared in journals throughout North America.

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Book Synopsis"What does it mean to be at home? Are we ever truly alone in our houses? In Twisted, a woman loses her best friends daughter while an old acquaintance is on trial for murder; Nectar and Nickle introduces readers to a young girl who digs up the corpse of the family cat and comforts herself with macabre fairy tales. She meets a boy in the woods and turns him into part of her game. In Garden Bed secrets are buried in the garden plot with the best of intentions, but they are dug up by a fox who watches and sees everything. Haunted bodies, haunted houses, and haunted relationships colour this collection to show us that our homes are not our own. We are only guests. "Trade ReviewSurfaces deceive. LeBlancs deliciously creepy stories revel in pushing past the limitations of the body, of the domestic, and of the known even when this means guts are going to spill. In the tradition of writers such as Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and Lisa Tuttle, these stories disorient and slide from the familiar and dreamy and into the nightmarish in the most thrilling of ways. LeBlanc kidnaps the reader and takes them on an unforgettable, screamingly great ride. Suzette Mayr, winner of the Giller PrizeAmy LeBlancs Homebodies is like a slow, sliding kaleidoscope of dreams. A series of glimpses into strained, disjointed families and communities, the book follows a network of disquieting characters with woundsboth figurative and very literalthat fester and pulse. The stories feel like admissions, like muffled secrets passed behind closed doors. They are fragmented but nonetheless fulldense and swollen with the characters blunted fears, their stark needs. LeBlancs writing is a shudder running through the body: a sensation that is visceral, reflexive, and inescapable. Like a boa snake constricting, like peristalsis, these stories will swallow you whole. Erica McKeen, author of TearAmy LeBlancs uncanny, open-ended stories perfectly capture the ambiguous anxieties of our pandemic times. This is an engrossing, contemporary, well-arranged collection with novelistic immersiveness. Seyward Goodhand, author of Even That Wildest HopeIn Homebodies, Amy LeBlanc moves time forward and backward, and mostlyunderneathfamilies, lovers, cats and friends. In these stories, growing up doesnt lighten the dark, understanding doesnt sweeten the lot, sadness and despair compete with spirit for space. Its LeBlanc who makes darkness palatable with her poignancy and poetic touch. Dont plan on putting Homebodies down after you pick it up. Susie Moloney, author The Thirteen and The Dwelling

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Book SynopsisFor fans of Alice Munro and Carol Shields comes an emotional and hopeful collection of short stories that delve into the tragedies that befall each of us in the search for goodness and meaning. The English poet, William Blake said, joy and woe are woven fine. So it is in The Crooked Thing. A collection of intense and emotional stories, there are traumas and betrayals, loves and losses, missed opportunities and discoveries, and above all, hope. In tales delicate and steely, a troubled young ferryman finds himself with an unexpected passenger, a songbird finds its voice, a mother learns to let go of her son and, after a chance encounter, an aging ballerina dances again. In her debut story collection, Mary MacDonald brings each narrator to face their own existence, taking the reader into darkness, passing through fear and resistance, to seek redemption and freedom. At their core these are love stories; they move us, disturb us, and upend our beliefs, to show us characters not all that different from ourselves.

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Book SynopsisOff-beat, provocative, philosophical, Music from a Strange Planet traces the fault lines of identity and emotional attachment. Grief, tenderness, and longing soak the pages, admitting the reader into the intimate places of the heart: An awkward child envisions herself as a darkling beetle; an unemployed business analyst prefers water-walking over rebranding himself; after being kidnapped, a psychologist rejects the idea of marrying herself; and in the squatters district, a biogenetically-altered couple visits an attic to observe a large cocoon. From the ruins of a dystopian city to the inner self-created landscapes of a coma victim, this unique story collection places characters at the core of their vulnerabilities. With a masterfully crafted tone and a register that ranges from contemplative to comic, the subversive, immersive stories in this collection brim with humanity. Expect your planet to tilt a little to the strange after reading this engaging, vivid and incisive collection of stories.

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Book SynopsisIn This Unlikely Soil, prize-winning writer Andrea Routley delivers stories of queer women navigating love and life against the lush, isolated backdrop of Canada?s West Coast. A dog that bites, a bear suffering from a hemorrhoid, an aggressive willow tree, berried-up Dungeness crabs and erotic mussels? The dense West-Coast landscape of This Unlikely Soil echoes the fraught search for connection of the rural-dwelling queer characters in this quintet of novellas. Finalist for the Malahat Review Novella Prize, this sophomore collection from Lambda Literary Award-finalist Andrea Routley explores the queer state of wandering, violence, and loss with surprising humour and compassion.

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Book SynopsisAward-winning author Darcy Tamayose returns with Ezra''s Ghosts, a collection of fantastical stories linked by a complex mingling of language and culture, as well as a deep understanding of grief and what it makes of us. Within these pages a scholar writes home from the Ryukyu islands, not knowing that his hometown will soon face a deadly calamity of its own. Another seeker of truth is trapped in Ezra after her violent death, and must watch how her family-and her killer-alter in her absence. The oldest man in town, an immigrant who came to Canada to escape imperial hardships, sprouts wings, and a wounded journalist bears witness to his transformation. Finally, past and present collide as a researcher reflects on the recent skinwars that have completely altered the world''s topography. Binding the stories together is an intersection of arrival and departure-in a quiet prairie town called Ezra.

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Book SynopsisHere are the best short stories and novel extracts from the 2015 Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers as judged by Witi Ihimaera, Sir Wira Gardiner and Poia Rewi. The book contains the stories from the finalists for Best Short Story written in English, Best Short Story written in Maori and Best Novel Extract. For more than ten years, the Maori Literature Trust and Huia Publishers have organised this biennial writing competition to promote Maori stories and writers. The awards and the publication of finalists' stories have become popular as they celebrate Maori writing and uncover little-known writers.

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Book SynopsisHere are the best short fiction stories, short non-fiction pieces and poetry from the Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers 2023 as judged by Emma Espiner, Carol Hirschfeld, Maiki Sherman, Mike Ross, Hemi Kelly and Robert Sullivan. This competition, run by the Maori Literature Trust and Huia Publishers, is held every two years to promote Maori writers and their work. This year, the awards sought short non-fiction and poetry, along with short fiction, from writers in te reo Maori and English. The competition attracts entries each year from writers of all ages and those who are starting out to seasoned authors. This collection of finalists' work celebrates Maori writing, introduces new talent and gives an opportunity for Maori writers to shine.

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1987 and reissued for the first time, In Fifteen Minutes You Can Say a Lot restores an essential New Zealand writer to new generations of readers. In Fifteen Minutes You Can Say a Lot begins with Texidor's most fully achieved piece of work, These Dark Glasses. Distinguished by sophisticated writing and acute psychological insight, it is set on the south coast of France during the Spanish Civil War. The stories which follow range from Spain and England to New Zealand, where she writes unsentimentally and unerringly of the environment of the time. Goodbye Forever, the unfinished novel which concludes the volume, is Texidor's most sustained piece of writing on New Zealand. The central character, Lili, is a Viennese refugee who arrives amongst the writers of Auckland's North Shore. She is exotic and alone, and her slow collapse is plotted with minute observation.

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Book SynopsisPresenting thirty-five stories from seven collections published over more than forty years, Vincent O’Sullivan’s Selected Stories is a milestone in the career of one of New Zealand’s leading writers. `Vincent O’Sullivan’s short fictions go straight to the heart of human experience. They are by turn tender, deeply moving, unsparing and often witty, endowed with a sly humour that cuts through his characters’ foibles and pretensions. He is simply one of our very best storytellers, with total mastery of his craft.’—Fiona Kidman `These finely attuned, wry and deeply moving stories that have been gathered together here are executed with such compassion and grace that we might not even be aware at the time of our reading just how much they have taught us about what it is to be human and frail in this large world.’—Kirsty Gunn `Vincent O’Sullivan ranks with the best worldwide. His stories are as fine as any being written today.’—Kevin Ireland

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Book Synopsis‘The first time I read Freya’s work I thought . . . uh oh. And then I thought, you have got to be kidding me. And then I thought, God fucking dammit. And then I walked around the house shaking my head thinking . . . OK – alright. And then – finally – I thought, well well well – like a smug policeman. Listen – she’s just the best. I’m going to say this so seriously. She is, unfortunately, the absolute best. Trying to write a clever blurb for her feels like an insult to how right and true and deadly this collection is. God, she’s just so good. She’s the best. She kills me always, every time, and forever.’ —Hera Lindsay BirdTrade ReviewThe first time I read Freya’s work I thought . . . uh oh. And then I thought, you have got to be kidding me. And then I thought, God fucking dammit. And then I walked around the house shaking my head thinking . . . OK - alright. And then - finally - I thought, well well well - like a smug policeman. Listen - she’s just the best. I’m going to say this so seriously. She is, unfortunately, the absolute best. Trying to write a clever blurb for her feels like an insult to how right and true and deadly this collection is. God, she’s just so good. She’s the best. She kills me always, every time, and forever." — Hera Lindsay Bird

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Book SynopsisA science educator in domestic chaos fetishises Scandinavian furniture and champagne flutes. A group of white-collar deadbeats attend a swinger’s party in the era of drunk Muldoon. A pervasive smell seeps through the walls of a German housing block. A seabird performs at an open-mic night.Bug Week is a scalpel-clean examination of male entitlement, a dissection of death, an agar plate of mundanity. From 1960s Wellington to post-Communist Germany, Bug Week traverses the weird, the wry and the grotesque in a story collection of human taxonomy.

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1989 and reprinted numerous times, Six by Six remains the definitive introduction to the classic New Zealand short story. Six by Six is a big, generous book. It shows the full range and vitality of New Zealand fiction published in the twentieth century. These are stories of pace and invention, mischief and melancholy, darkness and joy. From a two-page sketch by Patricia Grace to Maurice Duggan's short novel 'O'Leary's Orchard'. From classics like Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party' and Frank Sargeson's 'Conversation with My Uncle' to the contemporary brilliance of Owen Marshall and Janet Frame. Edited by Bill Manhire.

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Book SynopsisFinalist for the Indigenous Voices Awards. On the edge of normal, challenges take many forms—the everyday can be an adventure and the ordinary a triumph. A young woman in a group home investigates a mysterious piece of knitting. An obsessed bag boy does grim battle with a squirrel. A woman, an asparagus bag and a garbageman have a tumultuous short-term relationship. Otherwise unremarkable achievements become epic on the edge of normal. In the tradition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Room and If I Fall, If I Die, this uplifting short story collection explores the world through the eyes of protagonists whose perspectives are informed by their unique circumstances. Some are struggling with physical challenges while others seek to overcome psychological barriers. Far from being defined by their limitations, these characters revel in achievements others take for granted and find wonder in unexpected places. By celebrating the private triumphs of people who are all too often dismissed, Ashton reminds us all of our own humanity.

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Book SynopsisPara Handy has been sailing his way into the affections of generations of Scots since he first weighed anchor in the pages of the Glasgow Evening News in 1905. The master mariner and his crew - Dougie the mate, Macphail the engineer, Sunny Jim and the Tar - all play their part in evoking the irresistible atmosphere of a bygone age when puffers sailed between West Highland ports and the great city of Glasgow. This definitive edition contains all three collections published in the author's lifetime, as well as those that were unpublished and a new story which was discovered in 2001. Extensive notes accompany each story, providing fascinating insights into colloquialisms, place-names and historical events. This volume also includes a wealth of contemporary photographs, depicting the harbours, steamers and puffers from the age of the Vital Spark.

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