photo of stacks (lower floor)

Canadian Literature & Poetry
in English

Short Stories

Anthologies

My Home as I Remember Maracle, Lee, and Sandra Laronde, editors An edited anthology comprising poetry, short stories, and artwork created by First Nations, Inuit and Métis women across Canada and the United States, including contributions from New Zealand and Mexico.
The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories Urquhart, Jane, editor A collection of sixty stories by Mavis Gallant, Carol Shields, Alistair MacLeod, and Margaret Atwood, Dennis Bock, Joseph Boyden, and Madeleine Thien.
The Penguin Book of Contemporary Canadian Women’s Short Stories Moore, Lisa, editor Includes stories published between the 1980s and the early twenty-first century from Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Mavis Gallant, Jane Urquhart, Jacqueline Baker, Bonnie Burnard, Lynn Coady, Camilla Gibb, Eden Robinson, and Madeleine Thien.
The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology Vernon, Karina, editor An comprehensive anthology of fiction and nonfiction writings by Black authors from the Prairies, from nineteenthth-century fur traders to avant-garde writers of the present day. Includes correspondence, memoirs, excerpts from autobiographies political treatises and writings, photographs, interviews, short stories, poems and other types of writing from Daniel T. Williams, Mildred Jane Lewis Ware, George Washington Slater, Jr. Lawrence Hill, Esi Edugyan, Miranda Martini, and other contributors.
The Vancouver Stories: West Coast Fiction from Canada’s Best Writers Coupland, Douglas, compiler The stories in this collection take place in Vancouver and are written by Pauline Johnson, Emily Carr, Alice Munro, Ethel Wilson and Malcolm Lowry, William Gibson, Timothy Taylor, Zsuzsi Gartner, and Madeline Thien.

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries & Handbooks

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature Sugars, Cynthia, editor A comprehensive, authoritative guide to many different genres, topics, and aspects of Canadian literary history, including short stories.
The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Kröller, Eva-Marie A comprehensive introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature, including short fiction.
The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature Howells, Coral A, and Eva-Marie Kröller, editors A complete English-language history of Canadian writing in English and French from its beginnings, with an emphasis on literary, poetic, and dramatic works published since the 1960s, including short fiction.

Bibliographies

A Comprehensive Bibliography of English-Canadian Short Stories, 1950–1983 Weiss, Allan Main section of the work (Part Two) is a Canadian author index, listing short stories published in both large and small circulation magazines, anthologies, and story collections. Part One lists the cited publications and Part Three is a title index.

History, Literary Interpretation & Criticism

The Canadian Short Story Metcalf, John Metcalf, an editor, anthologist, writer, critic, and teacher, has written an authoritative book on the place of short stories in the Canadian literary canon. It also includes an expanded and reconsidered “Century List”, Metcalf’s critical guide to the best Canadian short story collections of the last one hundred years.
The English Short Story in Canada: From the Dawn of Modernism to the 2013 Nobel Prize Nischik, Reingard M. Traces the development and highlights of the Canadian short story from the late nineteenth century up to the present. The history and theoretical approaches to the genre are covered, with in-depth examination of exemplary stories by prominent writers, such as Margaret Atwood, Thomas King, John Metcalf, and Alice Munro.
The Canadian Short Story: Interpretations Nischik, Reingard M., editor An anthology of critical interpretations of major Canadian short stories, composed by Charles G.D. Roberts, Stephen Leacock, Raymond Knister, Frederick Philip Grove, Morley Callaghan, Sinclair Ross, Ethel Wilson, Hugh Garner, Mordecai Richler, Sheila Watson, Thomas King, and Carol Shields, among others.
Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story: Birdsell, Findley, Hodgins, King, MacLeod, Senior, Shields, Vanderhaeghe Kruk, Laurie A comparative study of eight nationally and internationally-acclaimed Canadian short story writers in English: Sandra Birdsell, Timothy Findley, Jack Hodgins, Thomas King, Alistair MacLeod, Olive Senior, Carol Shields and Guy Vanderhaeghe. Drawing on narratological and formalist theory, including an interpretation of Bakhtin’s important discussion of the “dialogical” nature of fiction, the author examines the multiple ways and means whereby this “double-voicing” manifests itself in the authors’ stories.
The Voice is the Story: Conversations with Canadian Writers of Short Fiction Kruk, Laurie Kruk is interested in the “voice” in the short story, she follows this theme in her interviews with ten writers who in many cases write longer fiction as well. Following the conversations, there are short notes on each author and the interviews are indexed. Carol Shields, “Inhabiting the World”; Timothy Findley, “I Want Edge”; Alistair MacLeod, “The World is Full of Exiles.”
How Stories Mean Metcalf, John, and J.R. (Tim) Struthers, editors Canadian short-story writers provide short articles on how they write short stories and approach literary theory.
The Canadian Mosaic in the Age of Transnationalism Ernst, Jutta, and Brigitte Glaser, editors A collection of essays written by scholars from various disciplines who investigate the geographical, sociological, political, economic, literary, and cultural implications attached to the concept of the Canadian mosaic in an age of mobility and globalization. Includes a chapter on short fiction composed by First Nations and Chinese Canadian writers.
Tropes and Territories: Short Fiction, Postcolonial Readings, Canadian Writing in Context Dvořák, Marta and W.H. New, editors Analyzes the influence of postcolonial criticism on the reading, writing, and status of short fiction: Métis narratives, Maori myth, and stories by Alice Munro, Salman Rushdie, Alistair MacLeod, Mavis Gallant, Emily Carr, and Thomas King.

reviewed & updated 20 May 2021 | compiled by Agatha Barc, MI