“Graceland,” one of the dozen stories in Lands and Forests, is now available at the All Lit Up blog, along with a short interview, as part of their celebration of Short Story Month.
Short Story Month at Queen Books, Toronto
Really looking to this conversation about short fiction with HB Hogan and Téa Mutonji, moderated by Leigh Nash. If you’re in Toronto, I hope you can make it.
The Bottom of the Order: A Photograph of Gaylord Perry Being Investigated for Foreign Substances
Gaylord Perry toiled for twenty-two seasons in the majors, and the look on his face suggests it was hard toil indeed. Wind worn, exasperated, he mutely submits to yet another examination of his cap, his head, his uniform, for a dab of Vaseline, a smear of K-Y. It might or might not have been there – Perry’s success rested on the twin pillars of a doctored ball’s unpredictability, and the thought, instilled in the head of each batter he faced, that the ball might be materially abetted in its tortuous journey from mound to plate.
— “A Photograph of Gaylord Perry Being Investigated for Foreign Substances,” for Hobart
Ottawa
Friends in Ottawa, I hope you can make it. Other events upcoming in Montreal and Toronto.
Peterborough launch
Launching Lands and Forests into the world on May 2 at The Garnet in Peterborough, with guest readers Dorothy Cheng and Erin Funnell-Kononuk. Hope you can make it, we’d love to see you there.
Events upcoming in Ottawa, Toronto, and Lakefield, too.
The Bottom of the Order: Overrunning It
The afternoon was mellow in all the right ways, and things broke in our favor: the parking was free, the rain held off, the saxophone quartet absolutely nailed “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and a kindly usher handed one of my boys a retrieved foul ball on our way out.
2019 Margaret Laurence Fellow Address and Reading
Available May 1
“quiet tension”
Full of quiet tension and a cast of fully-realized characters that feel like they could step off the page, Andrew Forbes’s Lands and Forests shows us what the short story was made to do: delight us, surprise us, and prompt us to more fully recognize ourselves.
—Johanna Skibsrud, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists, Quartet for the End of Time, and Tiger, Tiger
“gritty and elegant”
This is a breath taking collection—in that it is literally hard to breathe while you read these stories, such is their power, insight, and ability to expertly mine the secret vein of sorrow that runs below every ordinary, extraordinary life. Forbes’ stories manage to be gritty and elegant at the same time, rendered with Munro-esque mastery and restraint.
—Grace O’Connell, author of Be Ready for the Lightning and Magnified World
Lands and Forests is available for pre-order now.
