Off the Record

Edited by John Metcalf

Contributions by Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine and Kathy Page

Published by: Biblioasis

Imprint: Biblioasis

240 Pages, 5.25 x 8.25 x 0.50 in

Paperback
9781771965453
Published: December 2023

$19.95

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Description
Authors
Praise

John Metcalf has been one of the leading editors in Canada for more than five decades, editing more than two hundred books over this time, including eighteen volumes of the Best Canadian Stories anthology. He is also the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Finding Again the World: Selected Stories, Vital Signs: Collected Novellas, An Aesthetic Underground: A Literary Memoir, and The Museum at the End of the World. Senior Fiction Editor at Biblioasis, he lives in Ottawa with his wife, Myrna.

Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels, two previous collections of short stories, as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.

Kristyn Dunnion has authored six books, most recently Stoop City (Biblioasis, 2020). Her short fiction appears in Best Canadian Stories 2020, Toronto 2033, Orca, and the Tahoma Literary Review.

Cynthia Flood’s stories have won numerous awards, including The Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award. Her novel Making A Stone Of The Heart was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Prize, and her acclaimed short story collections include Red Girl Rat Boy (2013) which was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes fiction award.

Shaena Lambert’s fiction has been nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Award for the Short Story, and have appeared in publications including Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology.

Elise Levine is the author of Say This: Two Novellas, This Wicked Tongue, the novels Blue Field and Requests and Dedications, and the story collection Driving Men Mad. Originally from Toronto, she lives in Baltimore, MD, where she teaches in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

Kathy Page is the author of eight novels, including Dear Evelyn, winner of the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and the Butler Book Prize. Her short fiction collections, Paradise & Elsewhere (2014) and The Two of Us (2016), were both nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Praise for Off the Record
"A dazzling collection of memoir and fiction."
—Robert Wiersema, Toronto Star
“John Metcalf deserves a round of applause for bringing together such an excellent variety of voices on the subject of being a writer.”
—Dave Williamson, Winnipeg Free Press
"Metcalf challenges six decorated Canadian authors to consider and share just how they became writers. Each essay is accompanied by a short story, showcasing each writer's literary identity and style, and providing insight into how each writer approaches their work and their editorial relationships."
—Open Book
"If you write—or even just think you’d like to write—you can’t go wrong with adding this anthology to the stack on your nightstand."
—Miramichi Reader
"Carefully wrought, tonally diverse, artful, thoughtful, revelatory, and nothing short of enticing..."
—Brett Josef Grubisic, The BC Review
"The authors’ reflections illustrate the complex interplay between craft and intuition that goes into writing fiction ... and provide revealing case studies of how stories move from inspiration to published product. Aspiring writers will be enlightened."
—Publisher's Weekly
Praise for John Metcalf
“[Metcalf’s] talent is generous, hectoring, huge, and remarkable.”
—Washington Post
"[Metcalf's] exacting eye and his ongoing willingness to call out what he considers substandard, inert, or deadening in our literary culture has earned him opprobrium ... One need not agree with everything [he] says to find much to gnaw on in his analyses of the various ways literary technique and style ... are too often downgraded or outright ignored. ... While it’s amusing to wrestle with the temerity and gall of Metcalf’s settled esthetic standards ... his achievement in translating this approach into practice as mentor and guiding light is invaluable and we are all in his debt."
—Steven W. Beattie, Toronto Star
"[Metcalf] deliver[s] a layered and textured narrative highlighting a wide range of writing and writers, one that immerses the reader into the soul of what writing, and thus literature, is supposed to be. And in this, he has succeeded."
—Ottawa Review of Books
“Hilarious, touching and delightful … brilliant concision and understated humor.”
—Los Angeles Times
“John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in this country.”
—Alice Munro
“In the past few decades, Canada has won a reputation as a prolific producer of high-quality short stories. Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant and John Metcalf are among those who have proven themselves masters of the difficult form.”
—Maclean’s
“A master stylist confidently at work in his favoured form.”
—Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature: Second Edition
“Masterful ... Harsh reality, hope, and caricature mingle in this tour de force.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Off the Record

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