When underachieving writer Larry Mann is granted the lucrative opportunity to ghostwrite the memoirs of the notorious and eccentric businessman-turned-politician Maxime Montblanc, he accepts immediately, tantalized by the financial benefits he’s promised. However, as the two men begin to learn about and confide in one another, hints of their past …

Seven Floors Down follows the lives of Ryder and Kendall through bouts of homicide and homelessness, beginning when Ryder gets out of jail and crashes with his alcoholic friend who, on the verge of being evicted, remains infuriated with an ex-cop who owes him thousands. Kendall is a raconteur who entertains with countless stories, often while lying …

Told from two points of view—a mother and her daughter—Mad Cow examines farming life in small-town Alberta, a life fourteen-year-old Allyson wants only to escape. Meanwhile her mother, Donna, dealing with her own assortment of problems and setbacks, soldiers on through the daunting days. But when a strange affliction starts picking off the loca …

Preying on loving parents is second nature to Suzanne Foley. So is drinking to oblivion while shilling for the publicly-supported Alberta Broadcasting System (ABS). When new management from Toronto threatens to gut the station, Suzanne rallies reluctant coworkers to fight back. Sex with a younger man, intrusive memories and regular trips to the pre …

When Annika Torrey is diagnosed with cancer, she has no one in her life she can turn to.  Divorced and estranged from her fundamentalist family, she sells her life insurance policy for cash, hoping to live out her final days in peace. But then Annika is given a rare second chance. Meanwhile, struggling real-estate agent Matt Campbell is drowning in …

Highlighting the tension between insiders and outsiders, and set against a sinister backdrop, Fireweed and Bracken follows the life of Effie Cambridge who, awkward and searching, leaves her complicated life in Ontario to work as a high school teacher in Charlottetown, PEI, where she makes friends, courts rejection, finds love, and struggles to come …

Cheap Thrills takes place over the course of a single weekend, beginning with the incessantly stoned Ethan and his roommate Phil discovering the body of their weed dealer in a Vancouver alley alongside a box of porno magazines and crime noir paperbacks. Tasked by his eccentric boss with locating the money the dealer had been carrying, gang member W …

Although Evan Marshall has done time, he is more of a freelance hack and fly-by-night adventurer than a criminal. His life takes yet another detour when he becomes involved with an over-the-top personality named Lawson--not only a playwright, actor, novelist, would-be priest and teacher, but a self-destructive alcoholic, drug addict and part-time m …

This is the story of Levi Pepperfield, who tries to navigate his future as a retired English professor while indulging in the sorrow of lost possibilities that define his past. It's about the intersection of parallel worlds, of age and youth, of teacher and student, of man and woman, of real and fictional characters. Levi needs to discover his guid …

Angst, seduction, escape and extinction control these many tales--a whisper in the ear convinces a lady to take the plunge, another to take up surfing, and a young man to jump in front of a moving train--and there is joy in settling a score with despised neighbours and a conspiracy under the California sun. Some sketches are laced with passion and …

Mooncalves follows the bloody implosion of a cult in Sainte-Pétronille, Quebec, understood through the urgent voices of the living and a ring of ghostly, shape-shifting watchers. Sensing the impending dissolution of society by technological progress, the charismatic, utterly unhinged Joseph Reiser forms “Walden”, a collective of Luddite devote …

This is the story of Levi Pepperfield, who tries to navigate his future while indulging in the sorrows of his past. With the intersection of parallel worlds—of age and youth, of teacher and student, of man and woman, of real and fictional characters—and the help of a female rabbi, a former student, and a succession of literary giants both real …

Angst, seduction, escape and extinction control these many tales—a whisper in the ear convinces a lady to take the plunge, another to take up surfing, and a young man to jump in front of a moving train—and there is joy in settling a score with despised neighbours and a conspiracy under the California sun. Some sketches are laced with passion an …

With the rapid approach of the end of his professional life, Marcus O is quietly wondering what's next. Well first there's a workplace nemesis he aspires to humiliate. And then there's a style-conscious student whose shallow interests seem calculated to aggravate Marcus alone. And finally there are the nights scouring the web and composing attracti …

Shatter the Glass, Shards of Flame contains a wide array of narrative and confession-lyric poems written over the last fifteen years, examining the various joys and tragedies, the losses and redemptions, of the poet's life. These poems span a diverse range of Moore's experience, from his time in the Canadian military and on humanitarian work projec …

Christian McPherson's second collection of short stories serves up a boozy menu of mixed cocktails. Whether it be funny twisted tales of suburban marriages on the rocks, glue sniffing felons looking to win a radio contest, or Humpty Dumpty drinking the greatest cup of coffee in the world, these stories will have you reading and laughing to the last …

Jake's fallen for Genny, and now he's bringing her home to meet his family. On the long trip to the prairies, he amuses her with childhood anecdotes--but he's careful what he says. There are things he doesn't want to acknowledge, even to himself, when he tours her around town, regaling her with stories of its founding on land stolen from the Cree, …

Meet Marcus O, a man who’s feeling older but not much wiser as he sets jaded eyes on that last vigorous stretch before the dreaded sunset years. With the approach of the terminal semester of a long-winded career, he’s wondering “What next?” and closing down leftover business. First, there’s Judaea, a workplace nemesis inspiring Marcus’ …

Twenty-five years after his father Gord died in a car accident, Richard gets a call from his cousin Tony, who is working on a theory that Gord's death was orchestrated by Al Forzante, Gord's former boss and a powerful union leader. With his own career and marriage sputtering, Richard is reluctant to believe Tony, inclined instead to cling to the on …

What happens when the narrator is removed from a story? When the author's real life is fictionalized instead, so that creator and creation relate on the same existential ground with no middleman? Chameleon (Days) is such an experiment in storytelling, a literary novel that explores an author's psychotic break as he prepares to write an idea he has …

Alarmed that Canada Post keeps losing money, Ariadne Jensen, a woman in her fifties, pitches the CEO with a scheme to save the corporation: she will get people to start writing and mailing letters again. As an inspiration to others, Ariadne writes bundles of letters for all to see; some are historical fiction, while others are drawn from her own co …

With stories that chronicle the abused, the homeless, the suicidal, those seeking a world away from the reserve, and those returning to the indigenous community to improve themselves, 13 Lives is a fact-based account of events affecting thirteen indigenous persons. In each of these narratives nature plays a pivotal role, and against that backdrop 1 …

Alarmed that Canada Post keeps losing money, Ariadne Jensen, a woman in her fifties, pitches the CEO with a scheme to save the corporation: she will get people to start writing and mailing letters again. As an inspiration to others, Ariadne writes bundles of letters for all to see; some are historical fiction, while others are drawn from her own co …

Twenty-five years after his father Gord died in a car accident, Richard gets a call from his cousin Tony, who is working on a theory that Gord’s death was orchestrated by Al Forzante, Gord's former boss and a powerful union leader. With his own career and marriage sputtering, Richard is reluctant to believe Tony, inclined instead to cling to the …

Malcolm Bidwell is young, smart, and ambitious--and he's just been hired by mistake by newly elected Premier Steven Davis as his "go-to guy" for every political mess that needs cleaning up. And there are plenty of messes--from a cabinet minister caught in a vice sting to the premier's animal cruelty charge for killing a crow. Negotiating his way th …

One day Poppy the Pug meets Smudge the Maine Coon cat at the park, and so begins an extraordinary friendship and a series of adventures ranging from a disastrous coffee-and-play group to a terrible house fire. These eight linked stories also introduce Poppy's human companion Danielle, cheeky Jackson, Baby Gillian, the dog-hating Wenda, and the drea …

If you could write only one poem, what would it be? What should it say? Christian McPherson's One Poem explores these questions and by doing so delves into a self-examination of the artistic process, what it means to be an artist, and the expectations placed upon the artist. His exploration takes him from the Big Top to the far edges of the galaxy, …

Vector Sorn--intellectual and athletic prodigy--witnesses the tragic death of his mother when he is just fourteen years old. For the next four years, he does his best to maintain a sense of purpose, and at eighteen sets his sights on Quest University. The night before he departs, his grandparents give him his mother's journal, a tome filled with da …

Vector Sorn—intellectual and athletic prodigy—witnesses the tragic death of his mother when he is just fourteen years old. For the next four years, he does his best to maintain a sense of purpose, and at eighteen sets his sights on Quest University. The night before he departs, his grandparents give him his mother’s journal, a tome filled wit …

One day Poppy the Pug meets Smudge the Maine Coon cat at the park, and so begins an extraordinary friendship and a series of adventures ranging from a disastrous coffee-and-play group to a terrible house fire. These eight linked stories also introduce Poppy’s human companion Danielle, cheeky Jackson, Baby Gillian, the dog-hating Wenda, and the dr …

A naïve and unbalanced teenage girl with claims of extraterrestrial origins only wants two things in the whole world--family and fame--but she can't help getting entangled in the lives of the eccentric and troubled humans she meets along the way: Alisen Eden, a pill-popping, unemployed waitress who finds the girl strangely familiar; Neil Manson, t …

Though But When We Look Closer is a collection of eighteen stories that approaches its subjects from a parade of landscapes, running through these tales is a singular motif--taking control. Characters find themselves in skins they wish to shed, with vices held close and with voices that must be heard. Whether it be seeking a life in a foreign land, …

Aaron Cordic and Samantha Riske are a couple of twenty-something hypochondriacs living in east-end Toronto. While Aaron works part-time at a bathroom supply store, donning surgical masks, plastic gloves, and a backpack full of sanitary products, Samantha hides herself away in their apartment, tip-toeing around naked and spying on the neighbours. Be …

What does it mean to be a nobody? How does it feel to be a somebody? And why is it so hard to be ourselves? These are the questions at the heart of Nobodies, a darkly comedic collection in which a neurotic teenager experiences his first rejection; a stalker emails her favourite movie star; a young man wages war against God; and an aspiring philosop …

Cell: no service. Email: down. Internet: off. TV: nothing. Radio: static. Communication: minimal. Chaos: unstoppable. Press Any Key to Start. PR hack Tristan Schultz is buried deep in the endless code of Millennial life, slogging away for a major pharmaceutical company in Seattle. Hopelessly drowning in a world of texts, emails, Tweets and status u …

In this dark and gritty crime novel, the vacant Skyward Fairgrounds loom in the background as regional police officers pursue a stolen car and its unpredictable driver. A dangerous, high-speed chase unfolds. A few miles from the frozen highways, relentless Detective Kyle McVeigh pushes the boundaries to arrest local troublemaker Stan Hill; McVeigh …

Cell: no service. Email: down. Internet: off. TV: nothing. Radio: static. Communication: minimal. Chaos: unstoppable. Press Any Key to Start. PR hack Tristan Schultz is buried deep in the endless code of Millennial life, slogging away for a major pharmaceutical company in Seattle. Hopelessly drowning in a world of texts, emails, Tweets and status u …

Slouching the Dream: Poems about love. Poems about lust. Poems about heartbreak and professional wrestling. Poems about getting fat and poems about ghosts. Poems about tattoos. Poems about losing your hair and losing your lunch. Poems about getting married. Poems about getting rejected. Poems about Bigfoot, heavy metal and watching too much TV. Poe …

Meet The Gorgons The Legionnaires Chicken Treblinka The Statistics . . . Meet Dee, Gordyn, Em, and Jay, indecisive members of the greatest New Wave band to ever spring from River Bend City. Before they graduate from high school and flee a mill town that's seen better days, these ambitious friends (two sets of siblings) aim to make something from no …