Who? Where?

“Our list is an aesthetically diverse, award-winning collection of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by both established authors and exciting new voices. We pride ourselves on our careful attention to detail throughout the editorial process, the high production quality and innovative design of our titles, and our creativity in the marketing and promotion of each book.
Freehand: Great books. Great reads.” (About Us) Calgary, Alberta (Canada)

First Encounter? 

Saleema Nawaz’s Mother Superior (2008)

Other Freehand Books:

John Bart’s Middenrammers (2016)
Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau’s Winter Child (2014; Trans. Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli, 2017)
Ali Bryan’s The Figgs (2018)
Ian Colford’s Perfect World (2016)
Catherine Cooper’s White Elephant (2016)
Rhonda Douglas’ Welcome to the Circus (2015)
Musharaff Ali Farooqi’s Between Clay and Dust (2014)
Paul Headrick’s The Doctrine of Affections (2010)
Michael Hingston’s The Dilettantes (2013)
Devin Krukoff’s Hummingbird (2018)
Sarah Leavitt’s Agnes Murderess (2019)
Maurice Mierau’s Detachment: An Adoption Memoir (2014)
Rosemary Nixon’s Are You Read to Be Lucky? (2013)
Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah’s Homes (written with Winnie Yeung, 2018)
Sigal Samuel’s The Mystics of Mile End (2015)
Emily Saso’s The Weather Inside (2016)
Anne Simpson’s Speechless (2020)
Leona Theis’ If Sylvie Had Nine Lives (2020)
Peter Unwin’s Searching for Petronius Totem (2016)
Alison Watts’ Dazzle Patterns (2017)

Read Indies: Hosted by Karen and Lizzy

RECENT READ: Cary Fagan’s Great Adventures for the Faint of Heart (2021)

There’s something quintessentially satisfying about a Cary Fagan short story. (His novellas are stand-out too; Freehand also published 2019’s The Student and House of Anansi published A Bird’s Eye in 2013. His previous story collection, My Life among the Apes, was published by Cormorant Books in 2012 and longlisted for the Giller Prize.)

His stories are unsentimental but warm-hearted, and usually preoccupied with relationships. “Did parents always lie about the important things?” (Photographs of the Civil War) “When I finally saw that the marriage was lost I decided that it was time to get on with things.” (The Punch)

They read easily, partly due to a pleasant flow between dialogue (engagingly varied to reflect character) and exposition:

“‘I’m trying to figure out,’ I said, ‘what kind of guy takes a girl to a poetry reading—his own poetry reading—on a first date. I mean, is it egomania or something else, like the way a dog will expose its neck to another dog.’
‘They do that?’ he asked with interest.” (Poems of the Kornbluths)

And there’s usually a nod to the past, often through characters’ back stories, seamlessly integrated. Gentle, like an imprint: “He could discern ghostly circles on the floor, where Bessie had put buckets—all except in the bedroom, where the bucket must have sat on the mattress.”

But what I most appreciate about Fagan’s short fiction is his capacity to manage an ending. I really want to share one with you, because just rereading the final sentences of one of his stories reminds me how it felt to encounter them for the first time. But the important part isn’t the words, it’s the way that he offers just enough closure so that it seems to emerge from within the story itself. You don’t so much know what happens at the end, as you feel it.

Contents: My Father’s Picasso; Photographs of the Civil War; Bear Stories; The Punch; Poems of the Kornbluths; Stinky Potato Golem; Westfalia; Never-ending Yard Sale Blues; Laughing Heir; The Dog of Rome