Valery the Great

In her second collection of short stories, Elaine McCluskey has concocted a ragtag chorus of sometimes funny, often sad characters. The title story, about a child who has been exiled to the circus by the ... Read More »

August 15, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Cloaca

By Andrew Hood

Zoologically speaking, the cloaca is the undifferentiated posterior orifice in birds, reptiles, and amphibians. It serves urinary, digestive, and reproductive functions carried out by specialized structures in other species. Thematically, The Cloaca is the perfect ... Read More »

June 26, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Gay Dwarves of America

By Anne Fleming

Traditional narrative strategies and formal experimentation, as well as fiction and autobiography, blend comfortably in Anne Fleming’s latest collection of short stories, the delightfully titled Gay Dwarves of America. Fleming, a University of British Columbia ... Read More »

June 25, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Whirl Away

By Russell Wangersky

Of the 12 stories that comprise Russell Wangersky’s new collection, only the last possesses an ending that could be called happy. In fact, the ending in question has more cautious optimism than unabashed joy, but ... Read More »

May 15, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Mad Hope

By Heather Birrell

There’s a voyeuristic quality to Heather Birrell’s stories. The Toronto author seems to have mastered the art of writing about universal themes and subjects – marriage, family, motherhood, death, sex – in a manner both ... Read More »

May 15, 2012 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short

People Who Disappear

By Alex Leslie

The title of Alex Leslie’s affecting first collection of stories also serves as a unifying theme. Set in towns and cities, and along the winding coastal highways and obscure logging roads of British Columbia, these ... Read More »

May 15, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Dead Are More Visible

By Steven Heighton

The title story in Steven Heighton’s third collection features a man trying to move a huge stone with his mind. He stands in a cemetery-cum-public-park and contends that the thousands of buried dead want the ... Read More »

May 15, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ The Complete Lockpick Pornography

By Joey Comeau

It would be easy to assess Joey Comeau’s The Complete Lockpick Pornography as a simple exploration of violence and sexuality. The volume is certainly semi-pornographic and, depending on your personal or literary boundaries, refreshingly subversive. ... Read More »

April 12, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Western Taxidermy

By Barb Howard

Alberta author Barb Howard has a novel (Whiplock), a novella (Notes for Monday), and a young adult novel (The Dewpoint Show) under her belt, to say nothing of the more than two dozen short stories ... Read More »

April 12, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

All the Voices Cry

By Alice Petersen

Montreal writer and critic Alice Petersen has produced a first collection of stories that, in its depth and quiet wisdom, is reminiscent of the work of another famous Canadian writer named Alice. The 17 stories ... Read More »

April 12, 2012 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

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