Fiction
12: Best Canadian Stories
Edited by John Metcalf
John Metcalf knows writing is hard work. At the same time, he’s always seen it as play, something like building castles in the sand. Readers, he is convinced, must be prepared to play with writers. They must pull up their trousers and get down on their hands and knees if they want to understand the castles writers are building in the sand. Are you confused by Douglas Glover? Then play with him. Baffled by Keath Fraser? Relax and listen. Enjoy the obliquities of Lynn Coady. Live in the torrents of words as they pour over you. The story is constantly changing and readers have to change as well.
8.5 by 5.5 by 167 pages, cover by Cyril Power
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1385 3
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1386 0
ISSN 0703 9476
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Contributors: Caroline Adderson, Adrian Michael Kelly, Marjorie Celona, Nancy Jo Cullen, Douglas Glover, Shaena Lambert, Lynn Coady, Nadine McInnis, Steven Heighton, Keath Fraser
“The arrival, late in the fall each year, of this Oberon collection is always cause for fanfare”—Quill & Quire.
“A literary institution”—Ottawa Citizen.
Coming Attractions 12
Edited by Mark Anthony Jarman
 | Here are three exciting new writers. Eliza Robertson was born in Vancouver and studied at the University of Victoria. She writes all kinds of stories and recently won a Man Booker Scholarship. Currently she lives in England, where she’s at work on a novel and several stories. Kevin Couture has appeared in a number of Canadian literary magazines, among them Fiddlehead, Grain and Prairie Fire. His prose is tough and angular in style. Jill Sexsmith grew up in western Canada, but her stories touch down in Africa, India, Asia–and Paris. She’s now working in Winnipeg, where she has a novel and two or three stories on the go.
8.5 by 5.5 by 127 pages, cover by Cyril Power
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1387 7
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1389 1
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New writers who first appeared in Coming Attractions include Rohinton Mistry, Frances Itani, Peter Behrens, Lisa Moore, Dennis Bock, Neil Smith, Diane Schoemperlen, Timothy Taylor, Bonnie Burnard, Sharon Butala, Steven Heighton, Mary Swan, Caroline Adderson, Rebecca Rosenblum, Gayla Reid, Alexander MacLeod.
“Reading Coming Attractions is like test-driving the year’s new cars”—London Free Press.
“Coming Attractions is a who’s who of our best young writers”—The Fiddlehead.
Simon Says
David Helwig
The seven stories in Simon Says offer an elliptical but probing look at a series of moments in the life of Simon McAlmond. The stories are all written entirely in dialogue and they present an oblique view of Simon’s family, friends and lovers. Nothing is spelled out in so many words, but much is overheard. The reader is invited to listen and to fill the gaps in the narrative. In the process he becomes acquainted with the characters in an indirect but telling way–much as we get to know the people, all of whom are strangers at first, with whom we share our lives.
8.5 by 5.5 by 110 pages, cover by Erica Rutherford
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1390 7
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1392 1
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David Helwig is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, essays and autobiography. Born in Toronto, he taught for many years at Queen’s University and now lives in PEI, where he was named poet laureate. In 1971 he founded the anthology series Best Canadian Stories. In 2007 he was awarded the Matt Cohen Prize for lifetime achievement, and in 2009 he was named to the Order of Canada.
“Thoroughly entertaining…a triumph. David Helwig has demonstrated his continuing excellence”—The Fiddlehead.
The Modern World
Cassie Beecham
 | The Modern World is a first collection of stories by Cassie Beecham. Beecham’s stories all revolve around women, women of intelligence, women who try to make sense of their lives (but fail to do so), women whose lives are compromised by self-doubt and poor judgment, women who, in other words, are slipping through the cracks of our brave new modern world. She always writes about these people with total sympathy and understanding. Cassie Beecham was a finalist in 2011 for the CBC Literary Award.
8.5 by 5.5 by 112 pages, cover by Roger Fry
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1393 8
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1394 5
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Cassie Beecham grew up in Nelson, British Columbia. She has a BA from the University of Victoria and an MFA from the University of Guelph, and has lived for the last few years in Toronto and Dublin.
Tomorrow
Murray Pomerance
A man is found in the Paris Métro, unconscious and without identification. As the story unravels across a map that takes in Paris, Istanbul and the Orient, it becomes clear that this is no Everyman and that his importance can be measured only on a global scale. So, is this a story of love or of betrayal, or even of death? Or perhaps all three? Tomorrow is rich in frothy darkness, where conspiracies are everywhere and money is the root of both good and evil.
8.5 by 5.5 by 156 pages, cover by Paul Klee
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1395 2
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1396 9
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Murray Pomerance is the author of four books of fiction, Savage Time, Magia d'Amore, The Complete Partitas and Edith Valmaine, and three works of criticism, The Horse Who Drank the Sky, Johnny Depp Starts Here and An Eye for Hitchcock. He has been the editor or co-editor of numerous volumes including A Family Affair, City That Never Sleeps, Cinema and Modernity, American Cinema of the 1950s and Enfant Terrible!: Jerry Lewis in American Film. His fiction has appeared in, among other places, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, New Directions and Descant, and he has been anthologized in Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards and 04: Best Canadian Stories. He lives with his family in Toronto.
Non-Fiction
The Tallis Bag
Jack Winter
 | Jack Winter’s play, Ten Lost Years, was one of the most successful in Canadian theatre history. He’s now written the story of his life as a playwright and a teacher in the Toronto of George Luscombe and many other legendary people of the sixties and seventies. Winter knew everyone who was anyone and he has something to say about most of them.
8.5 by 5.5 by 180 pages, cover by Amedeo Modigliani
$42.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1397 6
$21.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1398 3
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Jack Winter taught English at York University and became the resident playwright and dramaturge at Toronto Workshop Productions during the sixties and seventies. Before moving to England he wrote twelve stage plays, as well as a number of radio and television productions, cinema films, critical essays, fiction, non-fiction and several books of poetry. Two anthologies of his plays will be published in 2013.
Poetry
A Shape of Breath
Judith Pond
It’s been more than twenty years since Judith Pond first appeared on this platform as a poet. She has spent these years travelling the country from one end to the other, eventually settling in Calgary in the middle of the beautiful but indifferent vastness of the Prairies. Now at last she’s back. This new collection reflects something of the long journey she has made. She sees herself as a twice-displaced person, once as a minister’s wife and once as a mother. But as a writer she’s an independent woman, using language that is at once clear, uncompromising and strong.
8.5 by 5.5 by 120 pages, cover by Keith Vaughan
$38.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1399 0
$18.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1400 3
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Judith Pond is the author of An Early Day, Dance of Death and Lovers and Other Monsters. She has also appeared in Coming Attractions, The Malahat Review, Grain, Descant, Prairie Fire, Ryga and Event. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and now teaches Communications in Calgary, where she is completing a collection of stories and a novel.
“Judith Pond’s latest collection of poems, A Shape of Breath, is a beautiful addition to the oeuvre of one of our best poets. This is poetry in which something is at stake”—The Fiddlehead.
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