When Liz Meredith and her new baby move into the middle row-house on Onley Street—Liza having lived for years off-grid in an old railcar—there's more to get used to than electricity and proper plumbing. She's desperate to avoid her well-meaning social worker and her neighbours Alice and Tom, who, for reasons of their own, won't leave her alone. And then there is her other neighbour, the disfigured and reclusive John Green, better known to the world as Frankie Styne, the author of a series of violent bestsellers. When his latest novel is unexpectedly nominated for a literary prize and his private life is exposed in the glare of publicity, Frankie plots a gruesome, twisted revenge that threatens others who call Onley Street home. Frankie Styne and the Silver Man is unforgettable: a thrilling novel of literary revenge, celebrity culture and the power of love and beauty in an ugly world.

No other person has done more to celebrate and encourage the short story in Canada than John Metcalf. For more than five decades he has worked tirelessly as editor, anthologist, writer, critic, and teacher to help shape our understanding of the form and what it can do. The long-time editor of the yearly Best Canadian Stories anthology, as well as a fiction editor at some of the pre-eminent literary presses in the country for more than forty years, he has worked to support and champion several generations of our best writers. Literature in Canada would be far less without his efforts. Sifting through a lifetime of reading, writing, and thinking about the short story in this country, and where it fits within the larger currents of world literature, Metcalf’s magisterial The Canadian Short Story offers the most authoritative book on the subject to date. Most importantly, it includes an expanded and reconsidered Century List, Metcalf’s critical guide to the best Canadian short story collections of the last 100 years. But more than a critical book, The Canadian Short Story is a love-letter to the form, a passionate defense of the best of our literature, and a championing of those books and writers most often over-looked. It is a guide not only to what to read, but also one, its author’s most fervent desire, which aims to make better readers of us all.

WINNER OF THE 2018 ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE • WINNER OF THE 2019 CITY OF VICTORIA BUTLER BOOK PRIZE • A 2018 KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2018 • A TORONTO STAR TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FAVOURITE BOOK OFTHE YEAR • A QUILL & QUIRE BEST BOOK OF 2018 Inspired by the author’s family history, this forthright love story unflinchingly portrays the trials and tensions of a lifelong marriage. Born between the wars on a working-class street in London, Harry Miles wins a scholarship to an exclusive school and with it a chance to escape his station. Instead he falls in love with poetry, and though his teachers encourage him to attend university, he’s tired of scholarship’s dull routines. He takes an entry-level job and spends his free time among the poetry volumes at Battersea Public Library One afternoon on his way up the stairs, Harry encounters the enigmatic Evelyn Hill. The daughter of an alcoholic layabout, the young woman chafes against the idea of marriage—but during a summer spent wandering the commons and taking in plays with Harry, their relationship begins to bloom in the shadow of the Second World War. Before they know it, Harry is headed into battle and the couple faces the first of many challenges in what will become a lifetime spent together. Drawing on original wartime letters written by the author’s father, Dear Evelyn reckons with the shifting tides of marriage, exploring how two people shape one another over the course of a lifetime. This compelling account that will leave its mark on any reader who has ever loved.

Natalie Baron is a neglected teenager adrift in the world when she attaches herself to Barbara Hern and her family, followers of Envallism, an extreme Protestant sect. Their new relationship fulfills unmet needs for both women—and leads to a devastating series of events that forever changes the course of their lives. Years later, Natalie, now a well-respected academic, travels to Finland in an attempt to understand the origins of Envallism as well as her own past. The Story of My Face is both a gripping psychological thriller and the archaeology of an accident which shaped a life.

The Lord Nelson Tavern: a Halifax watering hole in the early 1960s. The group of young university students who hang out there—a ramshackle coterie of aspiring artists, economists, poets, and philosophers—come together to gossip and ponder the big questions of art and life, all the while pining after the vain and untouchable Francesca. Though these friends soon drift apart, their early rivalries, jealousies and conquests will continue to reverberate. In the novel’s seven interlocking sequences, Ray Smith explores the often decisive and even fatal impact of seemingly innocuous choices upon the course of our lives. With unforgettable scenes that marry the sacred and the profane, and with structural innovations that recall the works of Barthelme and Nabokov, Lord Nelson Tavern is a must-read cult-classic of Canadian fiction.

Editor John Metcalf has inspired, challenged, and championed countless writers over his long career. In Off the Record, he encourages six to reveal what one rarely discusses in polite society: how they became writers instead of radio announcers or cabinet makers. The essays collected here, each accompanied by a short story, offer fascinating insight into the relationships between writers, their editors, and their fiction. Off the Record brings together work by six noted Canadian writers, among them the winners of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Butler Book Prize, and the Marian Engel Award: Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine, and Kathy Page. Their essays are candid, moving, and surprisingly relatable—providing plenty of inspiration for those among us who want to write.

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By Sue Thomas www.suethomas.net In the early 1990s there were very few creative writing degrees in the UK but lots of creative writing workshops in the community. Many writers, including me, taught creative writing in libraries, prisons, hospitals, schools, even living rooms. The students were hugely varied, from enthusiastic poets to prospective autobiographers and hopeful screenwriters and everything in between. I’m no longer involved in that way but such groups are still very popular, and they often provide a valuable income for self-employed writers. The idea for ‘Creative Writing: A Handbook for Workshop Leaders’ came from a collaboration between East Midlands Arts and the University of Nottingham’s Department of Adult Education, both now defunct. Its aim was to support creative writing teachers by collecting the wisdom of those East Midlands writers who were already involved in the practice. Many writers who teach writing have no formal training in teaching or facilitation and can find very few resources to help them when they’re starting out, or support them as they develop their skills. The book is divided into the following sections: Teaching Adults Teaching Writing Workshop Exercises Problems and Issues Resources and Information Of course some of the material is now wildly out of date and there are virtually no web-based resources but a lot of it will still be useful. I especially like the inspiring vignettes by writers Catherine Byron, Kevin Fegan, Martin Glynn, Jacek Laskowski and Kathy Page.