On the longlist, I’d read just four of the books when the nominees were announced, two last year and two this year. For those who can forgive short stories for not being novels, Lisa Alward's Cocktail will satisfy on many levels. She’s got the sharp observations of writers like
Last year I read 11 of the longlisted titles for The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and with the recent announcement of the 2024 longlist I was prompted to reflect on 2023’s selections. Three of the short story collections I’ve already written about—Talia Laksmni Kolluri’s What We Fed to
This morning, the 23rd edition of Canada Reads program launches. I’ve missed the voice of a career writer in the program in recent years and now, with Heather O’Neill’s inclusion (whose Lullaby for Little Criminals was a previous Canada Reads winner) as a champion, my affection for the program’s
Showcasing these during the #ReadIndies event, hosted by Kaggsy and Lizzy, is ideal: the compilations themselves embody the value of indie presses, but they also draw from the best work published by other small, independent publishers—journals and magazines. In the back of each of these volumes is a list
Looking back on my stack from last January, I see one of those books is in my stack of reading now (Kim Bo-Young’s stories, which were longer than I’d expected). Typically, I notice that first, and overlook that I read all the rest: isn’t it hard to not let
