Stoop City

WINNER OF THE 2021 RELIT AWARD FOR SHORT FICTION A sea witch, a bossy Virgin Mary, and a lesbian widows wifein ghost formwalk into a short story collection ... Welcome to Stoop City, where your neighbours include a condo-destroying cat, a teen queen beset by Catholic guilt, and an emergency clinic staffed entirely by lovelorn skeptics. Couples counseling with Marzana, her girlfriend's ghost, might not be enough to resolve past indiscretions; our heroine could need a death goddess ritual or two. Plus, Hoofys not sure if his missing scam-artist boyfriend was picked up by the cops, or by that pretty blonde, their last mark. When Jan takes a room at Plague House, her first year of university takes an unexpected turninto anarcho-politics and direct action, gender studies and late-night shenanigans with Saffy, her captivating yet cagey housemate. From the lovelorn Mary Louise, who struggles with butch bachelorhood, to rural teens findingand found byadult sexualities, to Grimms The Golden Goose rendered as a jazz dance spectacle, Kristyn Dunnions freewheeling collection fosters a radical revisioning of community. Dunnion goes wherever theres a story to telland then, out of whispers and shouts, echoes and snippets, gritty realism and speculative fiction, illuminates the delicate strands that hold us all together. See more