Fiction/Nonfiction: fiction

  • Forest Hill Gothic by Casey McFadzean

    Creepy house in one of the toniest parts of Toronto? Perfect. This story made me late for a meeting. The narrator is alone in her husband’s family home, and smells gas. Things start to get creepy: Darius had been away for a week when I started smelling gas in the kitchen of his parents’ house. We’d…

  • A Trail of Small Clowns by Caleb Bethea

    A surgeon has a troubling way of letting off steam from the stresses of work. I was not at all prepared for the body horror in this story, but it was just riveting, impossible to look away from. Given her line of work, I didn’t think she’d understand what it was like needing something to…

  • El Amarre by Elda Orozco

    El Amarre is a curse binding one person to another through forever. The narrator of the story wants her love to desire her forever, and seeks out some witchcraft to make it happen. This is one of the most gripping things I’ve read in a long time. Yes, that is what I wanted—balance—a twisted one.…

  • Boomtown Atoll by Arthur H. Manners

    Another banger from Phano. Manners’ story is about climate change and inequality, and what happens when a wealthy couple looking for refuge wreck their boat on a reef trying to find an escape from hell on Earth. Ocean currents are still changing all the time, as the last ice shelves calf town-sized chunks into the…

  • In Cahoots by Terese Svoboda

    A drama about a struggling mother and her son trying to make ends meet. Svoboda writes the mother’s character so clearly, the story broke my heart. But sadness and admonishment will not get you supper. This was the saw I was reciting when down on the street in search of groceries. The Apple Lady, just…

  • Good Morning Person by M.A. Boswell

    Bri and Andrew are broken up, but she can still hear his ridiculous catchphrases as she gets up for the early shift at the bakery. Bri’s character is quite relatable, until, well, read the story. Throughout their six-month relationship, Andrew used to crack a joke about making the doughnuts at least once a week, always…

  • A Ridiculous Man: June 1996 by J. Haase Vetter

    Roger’s life is falling apart, and he’s betting everything he’s got on a big turnaround. Stories told in this format often feel gimmicky. Vetter’s story doesn’t get that way for a second – every reveal hits like a hammer. A is for Acorn. The list always started with Acorn; that was one of the rules. For…

  • Our Daisy Summer by Annalisa Crawford

    This story about a lost love has followed me around all week. It’s a short, simple story with an ending that brought a tear to my eye. All summer, we danced with daisies in our hair, and when the evenings started to shorten and the start of the new school term lurked like a demon…

  • Back Seat Surprise by M.E. Proctor

    A hitman finds a kid in the back of his getaway car, and it’s the beginning of an unexpected adventure for both. This could be the basis for a full novel, it’s fantastic. The protagonist is the kind of low-rent crook you’d find in a Leonard or Lehane novel. For a job to go right,…

  • Marrow by Amy DeBellis

    DeBellis is so good at dropping one sentence that builds an entire story around it. There’s a reason she’s a favourite around these parts. In this case it’s this line: Although it is true that he has not hit her since he learned she was pregnant with his child.