Quill and Quire

Fiction: Short

Listen, Honey

By Shelley A. Leedahl

When cracking open a new collection of short fiction, it’s not encouraging to discover the following sentence fewer than 10 pages in: “Playing cards trumped all else in our family.” This kind of affected punning ... Read More »

December 10, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Bull Head

By John Vigna

It’s likely that no short-story collection published this fall will enjoy the fanfare of Alice Munro’s Dear Life. But here are two other first-rate offerings worthy of attention. Although stylistically different, both collections deal with ... Read More »

November 29, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ My Life Among the Apes

By Cary Fagan

It’s likely that no short-story collection published this fall will enjoy the fanfare of Alice Munro’s Dear Life. But here are two other first-rate offerings worthy of attention. Although stylistically different, both collections deal with ... Read More »

November 29, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Astray

By Emma Donoghue

Following her 2010 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award–winning novel, Room, Emma Donoghue’s new story collection is an exploration of what it means to be the Other. Portrayed with uncanny insight and compassion, the characters who people ... Read More »

October 29, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Dear Life

By Alice Munro

Critics have been saying for so long that a typical Alice Munro story is as rich and textured as any novel that they seem not to have noticed that her recent stories don’t resemble novels ... Read More »

October 15, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Siege 13

By Tamas Dobozy

When Soviet forces laid siege to the Nazi-controlled city of Budapest in late December 1944, it marked the beginning of one of the most brutal stretches of the Second World War. By the time the ... Read More »

October 9, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Iron Bridge

By Anton Piatigorsky

At a secret meeting in a Georgian seminary, teenaged students discuss forbidden secular texts away from the strict watch of the Russian priests. Among the teenagers  is “Soso” Djugashvili, a smaller than average, pockmarked, half-crippled ... Read More »

September 11, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short