Search results for ""author john metcalf""

Medals and Prizes brings together eight of the best stories and novellas by John Metcalf, a virtuosic champion of the short form. Metcalf was born in Carlisle and emigrated to Canada as a young man, where both his innovations as a prose stylist and his talent as an editor are legendary. Until now, he has never been published in Britain. Spanning more than fifty years, and ranging from some of his earliest published stories to the astonishing late-career ‘Medals and Prizes’, the work gathered here shows us a writer whose voice, at every stage, is unmistakeable. Entertaining and moving and mischievous, these elegant fictions are a homecoming for a writer ready to assume his rank among Britain's great short fiction masters.

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“[Metcalf’s] talent is generous, hectoring, huge, and remarkable.”—Washington PostIn Temerity & Gall, Metcalf looks back on a lifetime spent in letters; surveys, with no punches pulled, the current state of CanLit; and offers a passionate defense of the promise and potential of Canadian writing.In a 1983 editorial letter to the Globe and Mail, celebrated Canadian novelist W.P. Kinsella railed that “Mr. Metcalf—an immigrant—continually and in the most galling manner has the temerity to preach to Canadians about their own literature.” Forty years later, in spite of Kinsella’s effort to discredit him in the name of a misguided nationalism both embarrassing and familiar, John Metcalf still has the temerity and gall to preach, to teach, and to write passionately (and uproariously) about literature in Canada. Part memoir, meditation, and apologia, part criticism and pure Metcalf, the present volume distills a lifetime of reading and writing, thinking and collecting, and continues his necessary work kicking against the ever-present pricks. As is the case with all of his critical work, Temerity & Gall will challenge, delight, anger, and inspire in equal measure, and is essential reading for anyone interested in literature in Canada and its place within the wider tradition of writing in English.Temerity & Gall is printed in a limited paperback edition of 750 copies signed and numbered by the author.

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Editor John Metcalf has inspired, challenged, and championed countless writers over his long career. In Off the Record, he encourages six to reveal what one rarely discusses in polite society: how they became writers instead of radio announcers or cabinet makers. The essays collected here, each accompanied by a short story, offer fascinating insight into the relationships between writers, their editors, and their fiction.Off the Record brings together work by six noted Canadian writers, among them the winners of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Butler Book Prize, and the Marian Engel Award: Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine, and Kathy Page. Their essays are candid, moving, and surprisingly relatable—providing plenty of inspiration for those among us who want to write.

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