If You haven’t heard about the YOSS movement of 2011, here’s the website: http://yoss2011.com
Basically, three amazing authors — Sarah Selecky, Jessica Westhead, and Matthew J. Trafford — have declared 2011 Year of the Short Story, trying to encourage a better readership of the short story form.
Here’s a few quotes I’ve collected from interviewing some contemporary short fiction greats:
“There’s nothing like that punch in the stomach that you feel at the end of a story, when the question of the story (not the answer!) is revealed in its wholeness, and you don’t know what to do with yourself because it’s so troubling, or beautiful, or impossible, or uncertain.” – Sarah Selecky
“The required compression of a short story puts the writer and the reader into a different kind of relationship.” – Alexander Macleod
“I love short stories because an entire world is caught and pinned down so quickly. Language is in the foreground, there’s the opportunity to play with plot, make it more sophisticated, use wild tricks that might get lost over the span of a novel.” – Lisa Moore
I genuinely loved all 3 of the YOSS trio’s new books, and all 3 of the books they’ve recommended below.
These are six true must reads. I vouch my literary integrity and left arm on it …
Sarah Selecky is the author of This Cake is for the Party, a fantastic book that was a finalist for the 2010 Giller Prize and Frank O’Connor Short Story Award; recognition for short fiction doesn’t come any stronger than that. She’s been dubbed “the next Alice Munro,” and This Cake made the Globe and Mail’s 2010 Books of the Year list.
She recommends Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod, which was also a finalist for the Giller and Frank O’Connor. Click here to read more about Light Lifting.
I love Alexander MacLeod’s Light Lifting. I met up with him several times on tour this summer and was lucky enough to hear him read a number of his stories out loud. He consistently knocked the audience out. The stories are meant to be read out loud. He makes every single one of his sentences work so hard. But he also makes it feel effortless and graceful, like watching a galloping horse. That’s craftsmanship. It’s rare to find a book like this, where every single sentence is so carefully written.
Jessica Westhead‘s new collection And Also Sharks, was released in 2011. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC literary awards, and has appeared in many places as notable as Joyland, Geist, The Antigonish Review, and The New Quarterly. The Quill & Quire, National Post, Globe and Mail,. etc, have all raved about it. The Quill even said, “Westhead’s use of language is skilful and comic … Westhead may have a claim to being CanLit’s Woody Allen.”
She recommends Amy Jones’ What Boys Like. Click Here to read more about Amy Jones’s What Boys Like.
I’m about halfway through Amy Jones’ short story collection What Boys Like, and I’m loving the ride. With sly, sneak-up-on-you humour, Jones beautifully renders the most unsettling moments of troubled and troubling relationships.
Matthew J. Trafford is the author of 2011′s The Divinity Gene. His short fiction has appeared in journals like The Malahat Review and Matrix, and has been anthologized in collections as amazing as D&M’s Darwin’s Bastards. He’s also won the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, and been shortlisted for the CBC Literary award … twice. I reviewed this glowingly for Quill & Quire, and said something like, “In these unique and wildly imaginative stories, Trafford pairs crisp diction with unpredictable plots: you think you’re going to arrive on the third floor, but the elevator takes you elsewhere.”
He recommends Ryan Turner’s What We’re Made of. Click here to read more about What We’re Made Of
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