Short and Sweet: Short Stories for All Tastes

May 3, 2022

May is Short Story Month, and this year All Lit Up celebrates this under-appreciated form with Short and Sweet, a little series featuring 12 short story collections and their authors, who share brief thoughts on the short form.

See more details below

How's your attention span lately?

Let's put it this way: are you more likely to opt for an entire season of TV rather than one single film? The short story is the literary answer to the TV-watcher's dilemma. Like a TV show, it encapsulates an entire plot arc in a short span of time, but hints at more. It sits among a "season" - we call them collections, folks - of its fellows. You can likely finish one in ~30 minutes. And, like a lot of TV produced since The Sopranos, short stories are excellent, allow their authors to explore new narrative devices and get into the meat of a character's problem right away.

Short and Sweet is All Lit Up's celebration of the short story for 2022. Tune in every Tuesday this month to catch up with 12 authors, their collections, and their thoughts about short story writing. And, read short samples of their short stories to get a taste for one of our favourite literary forms.

 

Coming up on Short and Sweet:

 

Week 1 (Tuesday, May 3):

Chih-Ying Lay and  Home Sickness (Linda Leith Publications) | feature

Aaron Schneider and  What We Think We Know (Gordon Hill Press) | feature

 

Week 2 (Tuesday, May 10):

Sofi Papamarko and  Radium Girl (Wolsak & Wynn) | feature

H. Felix Chau Bradley and  Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy Press) | feature

Katie Bickell and  Always Brave, Sometimes Kind (Brindle & Glass) | feature

 

Week 3 (Tuesday, May 17):

Terry Doyle and  Dig (Breakwater Books) | feature

Alex Pugsley and  Shimmer (Bibiloasis) | feature

 

Week 4 (Tuesday, May 24):

Silmy Abdullah and  Home of the Floating Lily (Dundurn Press) | feature

Phoebe Tsang and  Setting Fire to Water (Thistledown Press) | feature

Elizabeth Allua Vaah and Maame (Mawenzi House) | feature

 

Week 5 (Tuesday, May 31):

Brent Van Staalduinen and  Cut Road (Guernica Editions) | feature

Dayle Furlong and  Lake Effect (Cormorant Books) | feature

 

Don't forget to check in with us here and on our socials @alllitupcanada with the hashtag #ALUShortandSweet to enjoy a little sweet shortness - or is it short sweetness? - all month long.


Discuss


comments powered by Disqus