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Short Stories
Short Stories
Julian's Double
Whatever Happened To Harper?
One Egg, One Sandwich
Mervin and Marvin
The May August Wedding
You Can't Take It With You
APPEARANCES
THE BOOK OF GREAT CANADIAN
SHORT SPORTS STORIES
SHORT SPORTS STORIES
Substituting Finlays
We Could Have Come Back
Pucks That Skip
Playing Time
A December Tournament
Do You Know My Brother Meyer
The Soviet Goalie Stick
Stories about the way people and things appear; about cunning, deception, misrepresentation and false negatives. Click on the cover images for excerpts from the stories.
Terri-Lynn May and Tommy Allstedder's wedding was in a class by itself. Aside from the furious arrangements leading up to the event, there were the unseemly circumstances surrounding the couple's decision to marry: an unfaithful groom, a vindictive mistress and a bone-chilling ultimatum. But the reason no one who was there will ever forget it, was the incredible spectacle at the dinner party.
It's the summer of 2016. Legendary Winnipeg rocker Burton Cummings is back in his hometown. He decides to catch Jerry Seinfeld's show at a popular local club, where they always find Cummings a table when he drops in. But that Saturday night, the club is in the hands of a young, determined assistant manager, who isn't sure Cummings is who he says he is.
What if Julian Assange, the famous head of WikiLeaks, decided to test the system? What if he tried to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fly to Stockholm, and give a statement to the authorities? How likely would it be for him to get any kind of a fair shake?
Born in rural Manitoba, identical male twins Mervin and Marvin are now in their mid-twenties, establishing their professional careers in Winnipeg. As young men with very healthy sex drives, the twins' world of girlfriends and dating is anything but typical.
A solitary, miserly old lady learns she has only a short time to live. Hidden away under her bed is an antique tea caddy, stuffed with cash. Not a single person in the world deserves even a dollar of her money. So what's wrong with taking her money with her when she goes?
What's the former PM been up to? We haven't heard much about him since the election. Maybe he just wanted to be left alone, somewhere quiet, and work with ordinary Canadians.
The Scholarship Student
Cary Miller is about to graduate from high school. He dreams of going away to a top university, of escaping to a better life. With no financial support, he has few options. When he becomes aware of a full-ride scholarship targeted exclusively to the LGBTQ community, he decides to represent himself as being gay and apply.
For readers who love sports. Stories for everyone, from children and young adults to old-timers. Personal and intimate stories; about players, coaches, parents and families. About hockey, baseball and soccer. Canadian stories, set in places like Dauphin, Weyburn, Flin Flon, Winnipeg and Ottawa. Stories from many different eras; from 1927, from the fifties, from the seventies, from present day. From bantam hockey and youth baseball; from the minor leagues and the pros. Here are descriptions of selected stories.
Click the book cover for a sample.
Click the book cover for a sample.
Hours before game seven of a playoff series, a junior hockey team's star defenseman badly injures his ankle. His disgruntled coach comes up with a creative strategy to bolster the team's chances
An eleven-year-old boy takes the mound in a youth baseball game. With a new curveball in his arsenal, and twenty strikeouts in his previous games, it promises to be an unforgettable game for parents and family friends.
It's the fourteen-year-old-girls city soccer championship. A thrilling game goes to overtime. For the team's veteran coaches, the judicious allotment of playing time poses a particular challenge.
An old-timer recalls a game from his AHL playing days, in the fifties, when the goalie's stick broke and the play continued, with hilarious consequences.
On a Sunday afternoon in November, in 1927, two young Jewish brothers set off for cheder in Ottawa. After crossing over Rideau Street, they make their way to a drugstore at Bank and Sparks, where their heroes, the Ottawa Senators hockey team, are just arriving for lunch. The older brother claims he already knows King Clancy, Ottawa's all-star defenceman, and he dares his skeptical younger brother to approach Clancy to confirm it.
A young boy travels with his bantam team to play in an eight-team hockey tournament in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. He is billeted with an older couple and their teenage daughter. A fabulous performance in the tournament is matched by an unexpected adventure off the ice.
In January, 1978, the Soviet national team is in town to play the WHA Winnipeg Jets. A young Winnipeg man asks his Russian immigrant friend to help him get a souvenir from the Soviet team. An exciting win by the home team caps an unusual transaction with the Soviet backup goalie.
A collection of stories illuminating the prominent role of political correctness and cancel culture in contemporary North American society. Institutional policies and societal standards must promote diversity and reflect prevailing sensitivities. Negative reaction from identifiable groups must be minimized. But the decisions based on these principles can land unevenly and problematically, as they do on the individuals in these stories. Click on the images below for excerpts of selected stories.
TOBY OR NOT TOBY
Toby Or Not Toby
Both Sides
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The gala opening night performance of Hamlet is interrupted by the indigenous actor playing the lead, as he exploits the occasion to make a strong political statement. The play's director insists that he be removed from the production, in favour of his non-indigenous understudy.
A Muslim woman, in a Media Studies course, files an official complaint against her professor. She claims she was denied her right to free expression in responding to a class presentation by a Jewish student.
A cartoon in an online magazine is met by a torrent of readers' hostility and displeasure. The cartoon is a parody of sexual preferences, racial issues and the pandemic. The cartoonist, a Black male, is fired by the publisher, who is also Black. A colleague at the magazine takes up his cause.
Two Black women create an organization to march for women's rights, adding nine other women to the organizing committee, women of various ethnicities, nationalities and cultural backgrounds. The inevitable problems and conflicts that develop threaten the group's cohesion and goals.
Three collections of short fiction are featured here. Appearances is a collection of stories about deception and misrepresentation. The Book of Great Canadian Short Sports Stories is family-centred, with stories about hockey, baseball and soccer. Toby Or Not Toby is the most recent (May 2023), a collection of stories about the prominent role of political correctness and cancel culture in our times.
