This Collected Collections: Debuts
Morse Code for Romanticsby Anne Baldo (Porcupine’s Quill)Set in Southern Ontario Anne Baldo takes us into a darkly surreal world through the twelve stories in Morse Code for Romantics. Patterns of life emerge-and break-in both relationships requited otherwise. The bleak, haunted loneliness of life and experience of loss pull the reader in on every page. Writer Ian Coldford, author of A Dark House: & Other Stories, says “Baldo’s prose shines. Her writing effectively evokes a world that is familiar and strange at the same time.”A Safe Girl to Love by Casey PlettCasey Plett never fails to surprise us with her writing (in a good way to be said). A Safe Girl to Love, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for transgender fiction, was originally published in 2014 and is now back in print. This new edition includes an afterward by Plett. Imogen Binnie, author of Nevada, another transgender fiction story set in New York, shares that Plett’s prose is, “both [tender] and [willing] to confront bleak truths.” Who can’t love these stories that bring a true reality to the forefront? End Times by Michelle Syba In this astounding debut collection of short stories Michelle Syba shares a world of messiness along with the mysteries of humanity. With a variety of characters, elderly, young, immigrants, and elites, Syba explores hidden anxieties and provides perspective that loneliness isn’t exclusive to one set group of individuals. Extending her charters with grace, “Syba’s meditations on faith are suffused with mystery. They carve a space between certainty and humility, where orthodoxies secular and sacred are laid bare,” says Emer O’Toole author of Girls Will be Girls.
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We’ll be back each week with more Short Story Month Collected Collections – so stay tuned! If this post inspired you to “collect” one or all of these fantastic books, let us know on social @alllitupcanada.
