Smorgasbord Christmas Book Fair – #Shortstories – #Canada M. L. Holton, #Crime Jane Risdon, #Multigenre Jean Wilson and Joy Lennick, #Flash Sarah Brentyn, #Suspense Audrey Driscoll
Welcome to the Christmas Book Fair and today short stories.. collections across the genresto dip into.
The first collection that would make a great gift is by M.L. Holton…Sticks and Stones: Ten Canadian Short Stories
About the collection
Ten Canadian Short Stories from Canadian artist and author, Margaret Lindsay Holton
Eclectic & Electric. Satisfying & Satiating. Delightful literary morsels to feed the mind …
From the INTRODUCTION: “… I am offering these stories to a wide range of readers because sharing well-chosen words expands our minds. New synaptic connections are made. We learn. We become more than we are. And, in these challenging times of reflection and crisis, reading really is a supportive and reassuring Gift that we can offer each other.” – mlholton
“Beautiful. A fine collection of memorable moments.” – “Cinematic.”
“Details described impeccably.” – “I loved these stories immensely.”
Experience isolated island life in the North, inner-city dilemmas, a heart-felt funeral, star-crossed lovers, untidy father-daughter dynamics, stories filled with razor-sharp elders and ever-constant rebellious youth – this collection is about life and the living.
One of the recent reviews for the collection
Sticks and Stones, the new collection of previously unpublished short stories by prominent Burlington, Ontario-born artist/writer/filmmaker Margaret Lindsay Holton, is surprisingly unsettling.
That it would be unsettling is no surprise: the author clearly articulates in the introduction her objective to entice readers away from their settled beliefs and ideological certainties into unfamiliar cognitive spaces in the hope that more empathetic communication might develop across today’s social and political divides.
The surprise is in just how many different and unexpected ways Holton finds to destabilize the inherent cognitive bias of the reader. Poetic word choices, plot twists, and shifts in perspective are to be expected in the short story format, but Holton combines and recombines these with familiar settings and seemingly familiar characters to the point that even the most ordinary scenes can become hallucinatory experiences.
Holton’s sensibility as a visual artist is evident in the extraordinary number of indelible images that these stories evoke. However, I feel I must refrain from describing in too much detail any of these striking moments lest their impact within the reading be diluted.
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