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The Canadian short story

The Danforth Review has a brief interview with Sara Jamieson, an academic who’s currently studying Alice Munro’s work and who teaches a University of Calgary course called “The Short Story in Canada.” Interviewer Michael Bryson takes the chance to ask her about a few common knocks against our short-fiction purveyors: that they’re overinfluenced by Munro, fond of nostalgia, and leery of experimentation. “[I]t seems to me that, as you say, there are plenty of writers out there experimenting with short fiction. They just never seem to get included in those anthologies of Canadian short fiction that are not expressly devoted to experimental writing,” says Jamieson. “I’m not sure why this has to be the case, and it is an issue for me in the class I’m teaching. The students really liked P.K. Page’s ‘Ex Libris,’ one of a few non-realist inclusions in the anthology I’m using. (Incidentally, it’s interesting, in view of your association of the experimental with ‘younger Canadian writers’ that Page is the oldest living writer on my course!)”

Related links:
Click here for the Jamieson interview

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