How Stories Mean gathers together criticism and theory written by short story writers themselves. Several of the essays were newly written for this book. The essays document the establishment and growth of the story form in Canada over the last twenty-five years but the collection is far more than archival. It offers endless insights into how writers write and how they wish to be read.

In discussing the nuts and bolts of their craft, the writers are inviting us into their workshops so that we can see how stories are made and come to a more intimate understanding of them. How Stories Mean is the one indispensable book for all those interested in the short story in Canada.

Contributors include: Margaret Atwood; Clark Blaise; George Bowering; Keath Fraser; Mavis Gallant; Jack Hodgins; Hugh Hood; Norman Levine; John Metcalf; Alice Munro; Leon Rooke; Carol Shields; Ray Smith; Audrey Thomas and Kent Thompson.

John Metcalf is one of Canada's most distinguished literary editors, writers, critics, and anthologists. He has helped shape the sensibility of an entire group of emerging writers through his work at the Porcupine's Quill press. Known for his strong views about literary standards, Metcalf has nurtured some of our most essential writers, including Leon Rooke, Russel Smith, Terry Griggs, Caroline Adderson, Annabel Lyon, Andrew Pyper, Steven Heighton, Jane Urquhart, Elise Levine, Clarke Blaise, Michael Winter, and Mary Swan, among dozens of other fine authors.John Metcalf is the Senior Editor of Porcupine's Quill. An accomplished writer, editor, and anthologist, he is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction including "Adult Entertainment, The Lady Who Sold Furniture", and "Kicking Against the Pricks: Essays".

John Metcalf's profile page

J. R. (Tim) Struthers has won wide recognition for his efforts as a bibliographer, interviewer, critic, editor, and publisher. He completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of Western Ontario with a specialization in Canadian literature, was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowship for study of the works of Hugh Hood, then joined the Department of English at the University of Guelph on July 1, 1985. He is the editor of three critical books: Before the Flood, a volume of criticism on Hugh Hood; The Montreal Story Tellers, a collection of autobiography and criticism; and New Directions from Old, a volume of criticism on Canadian short fiction. He has also prepared the two-volume anthology The Possibilities of Story and, with John Metcalf, the collections Canadian Classics and How Stories Mean. As an editor for The Porcupine's Quill and as the publisher of Red Kite Press, J. R. (Tim) Struthers has arranged for and supervised the publication of a considerable number and variety of books of criticism and literature.

Tim Struthers' profile page