Little Bird Stories, Volume 9

By Invisible Publishing

In a new partnership, Invisible Publishing and Sarah Selecky Writing school have joined forces to produce print editions of the wildly popular Little Bird Stories anthologies. The Little Bird Writing Contest is an international contest for innovative, emerging short fiction writers. The contest opens each spring when the birds come back and showcases the excellent stories that come from Sarah Selecky Writing School.

Each winning story is chosen by a celebrated author and published in a beautiful anthology. The winners Little Bird Stories, Volume 9 will be chosen in early spring 2019.

Proceeds from anthology sales go towards the Pelee Island Bird Observatory and the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory to help protect the real little birds out there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Invisible Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988784359

Book preview

Little Bird Stories

Volume Nine

Selected by Cherie Dimaline

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Invisible Publishing

Halifax & Picton

Introduction copyright © Sarah Selecky, 2019

Preface copyright © Cherie Dimaline, 2019

Individual contributions copyright © the authors

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Cover and interior design by Megan Fildes | Typeset in Laurentian

With thanks to type designer Rod McDonald

Invisible Publishing | Halifax & Picton

www.invisiblepublishing.com

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

preface

the party porch

The Catherine Series

The father king

03

05

15

23

About the Contest

I love to watch time-lapse videos of artists at work. A hand-lettered sign magically forming in a window, a lush seascape blooming in watercolour, fondant flowers growing petal by petal over the top of a cake. I watch time-lapse videos of leaves sprouting from tree branches for the same reason—it’s utterly fascinating to watch something form out of nothing.

It’s harder to see the writing process. Our work isn’t pretty to watch in its becoming. And if we write on a computer, our process isn’t even visible.

Write a story that starts with an ending. Give your character an unusual watch, use the words striped and innovative somewhere, and end your story with fruit.

Knowing the writing prompt these writers used is a way we get to see traces of their imagination at work.

When you find these clues embedded in these three stories, you may feel a little thrill: look! Here’s the way a writer makes something out of nothing!

Each writer used the prompt differently; each used these random words and imbued them with special power for their own story.

Knowing this part of their process can make it feel like you have access to a secret door as you read. It feels like you can see a piece of