Jul 122017
 

Jowita Bydlowska’s short story “Funny Hat,” published just a year ago in our June issue, has been selected for inclusion in the 2017 edition of Best Canadian Stories (due out this fall with Biblioasis).

Permit me a moment of self-congratulation.

First, it’s a gorgeous, poignant short story, written with Bydlowska’s usual (extraordinary) panache. We have published two other pieces of fiction by her: a novel excerpt “Wolves Evolve” and another story called “Bad Sex.” Also we’ve published her brilliant and disturbing photographs. This is what we like to do: find a writer we love and trust and keep bringing her back, watch her develop.

Second, this is not the first Best Canadian Stories pick for NC. Caroline Adderson’s short story “Your Dog Makes Me Smile” was in the 2014 edition. Which means two stories in Best Canadian Stories in the last four years. Plus I had a story in last year, “Money” — published in The Brooklyn Rail. (I add this because, um, I am the editor and thus have an essential connection with the magazine and its culture.)

That makes Numéro Cinq something of fountainhead of great short story writing, a go-to place not only for craft (see the NC Holy Book of Literary Craft) but for mind-bending, cutting edge fiction.

P.S. Good to mention here that though the editor of Best Canadian Stories remains the inimitable John Metcalf, the annual anthology has moved from its ancient home at Oberon Press to Biblioasis.

dg

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