Quill and Quire

Fiction: Short

★ The Two of Us

By Kathy Page

Toward the end of her fine new collection of deceptively expansive short stories, Kathy Page unfurls a little number called “Daddy,” told from the point of view of a child spelunking with his (her?) father ... Read More »

September 6, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Waiting for the Cyclone

By Leesa Dean

According to the publisher’s copy accompanying Leesa Dean’s debut story collection, “women [in fiction] are too often cast as inherently good.” It goes on to caution that the “perfectly imperfect” women within these pages “don’t ... Read More »

August 2, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

All That Man Is

By David Szalay

There’s a deftly submerged schematic quality to Montreal-born writer David Szalay’s All That Man Is, an anthology of short stories that are (almost entirely) unconnected on the level of dramaturgy, but very clearly in conversation ... Read More »

June 27, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Hamburger

By Daniel Perry

The stories in Daniel Perry’s debut collection are arranged in three sections – Coarse, Medium, and Fine – corresponding to three textures of hamburger meat. This provides an obvious link to the book’s title (which ... Read More »

May 17, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Double Dutch

By Laura Trunkey

Double Dutch is a confident debut collection containing nine stories that mostly offer varying perspectives on a single theme. That theme – the body/soul duality – is an old one, though the way Trunkey employs ... Read More »

February 29, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Bad Things Happen

By Kris Bertin

An armchair profiler challenge based on the acknowledgments page in the debut story collection by Kris Bertin, a Haligonian bartender: We are presented with the fact that the stories were written when Bertin was between ... Read More »

February 8, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short