The Hour of Bad Decisions by Russell Wangersky

The consistent sentence-level craftsmanship in this collection is a rarity. A solid display of literary talent. A sentence-after-sentence assurance this man earned that Giller nod. Engrossing stories and compelling subject matter. Raw human emotion swimming through dynamic diction.

 Michael Crummey’s Flesh and Blood

Overshadowed by Crummey’s highly acclaimed novels, Flesh and Blood is a work of linguistic mastery in every way: the style, structure, and barebones writing in these stories are as assured as the hawk that never misses in sinking in those talons. This is the work of a literary genius. I mean it as no slight to Michael’s great novels – but this is his best book.

Mark Anthony Jarman’s My White Planet

People hail Jarman as the country’s most original short fiction writer in the country. But original doesn’t cut it; original implies he is the first of our generation, but he is beyond this generation of writers. He is the first of the next to come. He is post-original. It is like he is ten years in the future, writing from a place where language and story has evolved to, and none of us are quite there yet. Inevitably, a reader will sometimes get lost trying to find him (find a story inaccessible), but when you do find him and keep up, you know you’ve just experienced something no other writer in this country is offering.