Main content

Short stories

  • Author:
    Olivier, Rachel V.
    Summary:

    This is a compilation of flash fiction and short stories, and was previously published online and in print. Mixing children's tales, fantasy, romance, scifi and horror, these stories are now gathered together into one book for your amusement and pleasure. Dip in and enjoy whenever you feel the need to go for a ride or visit the fun house... or a haunted one.

  • Author:
    Collette, Jean Yves
    Summary:

    Les cent soixante et onze récits de ce recueil de faits curieux et de mise en relief de la quotidienneté éclairent le dessous des choses. Jean Yves Collette surprend par la diversité de ses registres : de l’intime à l’universel, du réalisme à l’absurde, les mots défilent, de A à Z, dans une sorte d’abécédaire parfois joyeux, parfois cynique. Un drame est raconté en quelques mots, un fait évoqué est retourné en un instant, une joie intense dévoilée est tout aussitôt dissimulée… Qu’il nous fasse part de sa vision de l’état du monde ou qu’il trace les contours de ses désirs ou de ses sentiments, l’auteur bouscule le conformisme ambiant et se moque des idées reçues.

  • Author:
    Chafe, Robert
    Summary:

    In Two-Man Tent, one of Canada's most celebrated writers, Robert Chafe, offers his long-awaited collection of short fiction. The individual stories are thematically linked by an interwoven, recurring tale of a long-distance relationship told in the form of text messages, chat sessions, and emails, as Chafe brings his singular talent for dialogue and scripting to work within new forms of communication. The results are stunning in an absorbing and thoroughly contemporary collection that reads like no other.

  • Author:
    Novakovich, Josip
    Summary:

    In this latest short-story collection Josip Novakovich explores the shallow roots of emigration as he traverses North America from university post to writing residency. These stories take on an aura of memoir as they invite us into the privacy of his family experiences. Novakovich is in search of a natural existence, whether it be living close to the land or raising animals.

  • Author:
    MacIvor, Daniel
    Summary:

    In Communion, a recovering alcoholic and her estranged daughter try to negotiate a new relationship in spite of vastly different lifestyles; Was Spring tells the story of three women who suffered a tragic accident years ago; and Small Things explores how the little differences keep us from understanding each other.

  • Author:
    Tihanyi, Eva
    Summary:

    In the thirteen stories that comprise Truth and Other Fictions, by Eva Tihanyi, women take centre stage as they experience the slippery relationship between art and truth, not merely as an aesthetic concept but a reality in their lives. Art here is present in many forms and brought closely into the personal realm of the people involved with it: the paintings of Picasso, the photographs of Brassaï, the songs of Billie Holiday, the emotional impact of opera, the literature of Hemingway and Durrell, the intellect of Sontag. With each story we move closer to our own time, and into contemporary “twists” involving gourmet cooking and fine wine, the Internet, cosmetic surgery, and finally the Body Worlds exhibit where death itself is turned into a form of art.

  • Author:
    Diaz, Jonathan
    Summary:

    An encouraging collection of short stories by bestselling middle-grade authors. This one-of-a-kind treasury brings together the talents of nearly two dozen bestselling middle-grade authors including Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, Ally Condie, and Jennifer A. Nielsen—who have created original short stories and modern-day fairy tales, based on the lives and dreams of children they have met who all have two things in common: they have very big hopes and dreams, and they are all cancer patients.

  • Author:
    Boullata, Issa J.
    Summary:

    Abdallah's encounter with the military governor on the eve of his departure for America opens this collection of stories, and Khalil al-Ibrahami's moving search for his lost fiancée in Jerusalem closes the collection. In between, Issa J. Boullata's stories show what it's like to be an Arab from Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, or Egypt making a new life as an immigrant in Canada or the United States. This is what it is, to be displaced. This is what it is to leave your home and start over in a new country.

  • Author:
    Gaiman, Neil
    Summary:

    Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things-which includes a never-before published American Gods story, "Black Dog," written exclusively for this volume. In this new collection, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction-stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013-as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection. Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story-a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane-Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year-stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness. A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.

  • Author:
    Behrens, Peter
    Summary:

    From Peter Behrens, one of our most beloved storytellers and the author of the bestselling and award-winning novels The Law of Dreams and The O’Briens, comes a spectacular collection of riveting stories about growing up and growing older, falling in and out of love, and finding ourselves and losing each other. Moving from the magisterial streets of Montreal to the cramped spaces of New York City to the wide open plains of the west, these stories bring their settings magically alive, and within them offer us an incredible array of brilliantly imagined, richly drawn characters. If you liked Peter Behrens’ sweeping family sagas, then you will love this collection, full of the same ambition, heartache, and wisdom that have made him an essential voice of our times.

  • Author:
    Irani, Anosh
    Summary:

    From the bestselling author of The Parcel and Song of Kahunsha, here's a sweet yet tart collection of seven gem-like stories, capped off by an unforgettable short memoir about living between Canada and India for 20 years. Brilliantly concise, wryly funny, wonderfully accessible and affecting, this is Anosh Irani at his best. Twenty years ago, to the mystification and shock of his family and friends, the young Anosh Irani took off for a place he'd only heard about in books: Vancouver, Canada. His idea was both grand and vague: he would invent himself as a writer in this far-off land. Miraculously, Irani did just that, publishing award-winning novels and plays set in his hometown of Bombay--but not without a great price, and not without radically changing his worldview. With these seven stunning stories and one brief but powerful memoir, Irani for the first time explores the experience of living between worlds--India and Canada. As Irani says: "One is the place of my birth, and the other a place I choose to live in. I'm interested in how these completely different worlds speak to each other, and what happens when people from one world move to the other, and are trapped there. What does the journey give to people? What does it take away, tear apart? To my surprise, the form of the story allowed me to ask these questions." In this modern-day treasury, we meet: a swimming instructor determined to reenact John Cheever's iconic short story "The Swimmer" in the pools of Mumbai; a famous chef who, overcome by a devastating childhood memory, melts down during an appearance on a New York talk show; a gangster's wife who is convinced she's found the reincarnation of a lost loved one in a penguin from the Mumbai zoo; an illegal immigrant in North Vancouver who is drawn into a pick-up cricket game that may decide his fate. These are just some of the extraordinary characters that animate this wildly imaginative collection of tales about people caught between two worlds. The collection culminates in a gorgeous and emotionally raw denouement: a story exploring the author's own experience of twenty years in Canada as an immigrant, ingeniously blurring the line between fiction and fact. Delectable yet not without bitters and spice, The Treasury of Sweetness confirms Anosh Irani as a unique, inventive, vitally important voice in contemporary fiction.

  • Author:
    Acker, Camille
    Summary:

    When you're black and female in America, society's rules were never meant to make you safe or free. Camille Acker's relatable yet unexpected characters break down the walls of respectability politics, showing that the only way for black women to be free is to be themselves.

  • Author:
    Banks, Russell
    Summary:

    Get to know the colorful cast of characters at the Granite State Trailerpark, where Flora in number 11 keeps more than a hundred guinea pigs and screams at people to stay away from her babies; Claudel in number 5 thinks he is lucky, until his wife burns down their trailer and runs off with Howie Leeke; and Noni in number 7 has telephone conversations with Jesus and tells the police about them.

  • Author:
    Bell, Wade
    Summary:

    A classic short fiction writer, Wade Bell lets his characters do the talking for him, electing to stay in the background. His style is simple but he's not afraid to pry open the heart of a character and expose it for all the world to see. Bell's latest collection features a young wife who deliberately sets up her husband to kill or be killed; a struggling artist who is picked up by a mysterious six-foot woman at a bar; a girlfriend called Jupiter Moon; and a drill instructor who gets his kicks ordering a seven-year-old to march.

  • Author:
    Wu, Hua Laura, Xu, Xueqing
    Summary:

    Toward the North is the first anthology of thirteen short fiction pieces written and translated by Chinese-Canadian writers during the last two decades, each of which depicts the contemporary lives of new Chinese immigrants to Canada, and illustrates newcomers' perspectives of multicultural Canada. The theme of the anthology is Chinese transnational and cross-cultural life experience. A fundamental concern shared by most of the authors is to redefine their characters' cultural identity in their acculturation across times and space. In these stories, the exploration of the relationship between Chinese immigrants and Canadians extends beyond "yellow"/"white" binary model, revealing interactions between the Chinese and other ethnic communities. Struggles between cultural assimilation and resistance are vividly and captivatedly portrayed. The authors' approaches to their characters' life experience of culture's in-between displays an intriguing diversity both in content and in styles.

  • Author:
    Henighan, Tom
    Summary:

    Short stories about exploring the unknown. Tom Henighan’s numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry include The Maclean’s Companion to Canadian Arts and Culture, The Well of Time, and the YA novel Viking Quest (2001). He lives in Ottawa, and teaches at Carleton University.

  • Author:
    Donoghue, Emma
    Summary:

    In this sparkling collection of nineteen stories, the bestselling author of Slammerkin returns to contemporary affairs, exposing the private dilemmas that result from some of our most public controversies. A man finds God and finally wants to father a child-only his wife is now forty-two years old. A coach's son discovers his sexuality on the football field. A roommate's bizarre secret liberates a repressed young woman. From the unforeseen consequences of a polite social lie to the turmoil caused by the hair on a woman's chin, Donoghue dramatizes the seemingly small acts upon which our lives often turn. Many of these stories involve animals and what they mean to us, or babies and whether to have them; some replay biblical plots in modern contexts. With characters old, young, straight, gay, and simply confused, Donoghue dazzles with her range and her ability to touch lightly but delve deeply into the human condition.

  • Author:
    Donoghue, Emma
    Summary:

    A man finds God and finally wants to father a child-- only his wife is now forty-three years old. A coach's son discovers his sexuality on the football field. A roommate's bizarre secret liberates a repressed young woman. From the unforeseen consequences of a polite social lie to the turmoil caused by a single hair on a woman's chin, Donoghue dramatizes the seemingly small acts upon which our lives often turn. Many of these stories involve animals and what they mean to us, or babies and whether to have them; some replay Biblical plots in modern contexts. With characters old, young, straight, gay and simply confused, Donoghue dazzles with her range and her ability to touch lightly but delve deeply into the human condition.

  • Author:
    Appleton, Victor
    Summary:

    Tom and his father are arguing about Tom's latest idea, a photo telephone. Mr. Swift is adamant that the idea will not work, but Tom has some ideas in mind, and refuses to back down. Tom read about a recent news event where a photograph was transmitted over telegraph lines, and there is no functional difference between the wires used for a telephone to those used in telegraphs. In the meantime, some shady occurrences are happening in the neighborhood. Tom and Ned are almost run over by a speeding motor boat, operated by a con-artist known as Shallock Peters. The feud between Mr. Peters and Tom begins when Mr. Peters refuses to acknowledge the accident. The animosity between the two only grows deeper as Mr. Peters tries to buy Tom out of some of his inventions, under the guise of making a profit. Tom refuses to allow anyone other than himself permissions to his patents, and this infuriates Mr. Peters. Later, Tom learns that his good friend, Mr. Damon, is having serious financial troubles. As the plot gets thicker and thicker, one of Tom's airships is stolen, and then Mr. Damon unexpectedly disappears. All this while Tom is desperately trying to get his latest invention working.

  • Author:
    Malla, Pasha
    Summary:

    A new short story by award-winning author Pasha Malla. Set during the summer in a small town on the edge of the Arctic Circle, To Sweep the Light is a love story about solitude and companionship, proximity and distance, and the quest for intimacy between a boy and a girl.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Short stories