Long Story Short with Nadine McInnis, Miranda Hill and Steven Heighton

Long Story Short is an exploration of the art of the short story. From Alice Munro to Alistair McLeod, Canadian short fiction writers are among the best in the world. Join us in celebrating the next generation of great Canadian storytellers.

Blood Secrets is the new collection of short stories by Ottawa writer Nadine McInnis. Her stories are about endings and their revelations: the affair that ends a marriage, the disease that ends a life, the effect of a long-ago suicide. She studied English Literature at the University of Ottawa and spent two years on the Thunderchild Reserve in Saskatchewan. Publishers’ Weekly called her “a potential heir to the tradition of Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.”

Miranda Hill’s new volume of short stories, Sleeping Funny, is as diverse as it is accomplished – from a sixteen-year-old navigating an embarrassing sex-ed class to a middle-aged minister experiencing a devastating crisis of faith in a 19^th-century rural village to a pilot’s widow coping with her grief by growing an unusual “victory garden” during World War II. Her writing has been published by The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review and The Fiddlehead.

In his new book of short stories, The Dead Are More Visible, Steven Heighton explores love and loss, containment and exclusion. In one story, a medical researcher and his claustrophobic fiancée are locked in the trunk of their car after a failed carjacking (the thief can't drive a standard). His novel Afterlands appeared in six countries, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and was a “best of year” selection in ten publications in Canada, the USA and the UK. Pairing the cultural acuity of Lost in Translation with the compassion and reach of The World According to Garp, Heighton breathes new life into the short story.

Gratefully acknowledge Thea Yeatman's contribution as Author Patron for Steven Heighton!