South of Elfrida

Holley Rubinsky’s fourth book is a collection of 18 short stories that addresses the theme of liminality: her characters, mostly female, transgress borders of countries and relationships, and stand, tentatively, on the threshold of new ... Read More »

March 12, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Canary

By Nancy Jo Cullen

As someone raised in a working-class household, it’s rare for me to read CanLit that evokes the street I grew up on, or includes characters who remind me of my dad. So it was a ... Read More »

March 12, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

By Théodora Armstrong

Théodora Armstrong’s debut collection launches House of Anansi Press’s new short-fiction imprint, Astoria, in impressive fashion. This is a writer to watch, and a book not to be missed. In the trio “Rabbit,” “Whale Stories,” ... Read More »

March 11, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Wide World in Celebration and Sorrow: Acts of Kamikaze Fiction

By Leon Rooke

Wide World in Celebration and Sorrow is the latest addition to Leon Rooke’s impressive oeuvre. The 20 stories that comprise Wide World are diverse in character and setting, though unified in the outlandishness of their ... Read More »

February 4, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Every House Is Haunted

By Ian Rogers

Short-story collections give fantasy and horror writers an opportunity to indulge imaginative premises. In his first collection, Ian Rogers displays his original vision via characters such as a professor who discovers a forest of perpetual ... Read More »

January 3, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Cosmo

By Spencer Gordon

The word “spiritual” appears in each of the first three stories in Spencer Gordon’s debut collection, an appropriate marker for a book that traffics so resolutely in the existential malaise of our pop-culture-saturated world. Gordon’s ... Read More »

January 3, 2013 | Filed under: 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

How to Get Along with Women

By Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Many of the characters in Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s debut collection have identity issues and confidence problems, but their author is incredibly self-assured. De Mariaffi focuses on female relationships – both romantic and between friends – ... 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