The Two of Us by Kathy Page Reviewed by Paul Headrick in The Ormsbury Review From Gallant to Kafka In “The House on Manor Close,” the opening story of this collection, a woman recalls her childhood with an older sister who was obsessed with birds: “I began to think that when she grew up she … Continue reading The Two of Us: “the works of a master who seems to have tapped into ancient troubles bubbling up in our struggling world.” →

A Tale of Four Storytellers In this thoughtful and illuminating essay posted on AllLit Up,  https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2015/A-Tale-of-Four-Storytellers,  Poet Zachary Wells asks whether Canadian culture is old enough to  make a literature of fantasy, and  concludes with an affirmation that yes, it is, provide we  have an elastic definition of what Canadian is, and can overcome the … Continue reading Storytellers →

From the Biblioasis blog: We are pleased to announce that Kathy Page’s Paradise & Elsewhere, Catherine Chandler’s Glad and Sorry Seasons, and Cynthia Flood’s Red Girl Rat Boy have all been reviewed in Canadian Literature! “The genius of [Page’s] book is the way magic seeps into the stories. It seems so inevitable. Somewhere deep in the ancient part of our brains, … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere reviewed in Canadian Literature →

 Already a  Giller Prize finalist and a CBC Bookies Award finalist,  Paradise & Elsewhere is  now short-listed for the 2015 BC Book Prizes. It’s one of five titles  listed for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/winners/2015  

http://www.malahatreview.ca/reviews/189reviews_perry.html Daniel Perry on  “We, the Trees.” Each reviewer seems to have a different favourite. “….Uniting the stories’ themes of exchange, translation, and conversion with their steady attention to the natural world (and loss thereof), “We the Trees” stands among the best-achieved pieces in the collection, telling of a journalism professor’s encounter with Joshua, a … Continue reading The Malahat Review on Paradise & Elsewhere →

ad·jec·tive ˈajəktiv/ noun  a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.     Ursula Le Guin’s  Steering the Craft includes an exercise called Chastity, which involves stripping all adjectives and adverbs from one’s writing. It’s an exercise I often use when teaching: the … Continue reading Year of Adjectives →

  Leland Cheuk reviews both Alphabet and Paradise & Elsehwere in The Rumpus. ALPHABET AND PARADISE AND ELSEWHERE BY KATHY PAGE REVIEWED BY LELAND CHEUK December 8th, 2014 Studies have shown that reading literary fiction increases a reader’s ability to empathize. In her first books to be published in the U.S., Giller Prize-nominated British author Kathy Page puts that … Continue reading Double Review: Alphabet and Paradise & Elsewhere in The Rumpus →

You can read/see Tobias Carroll’s interview with Kathy Page for  Volume 1 bookstore in Brooklyn  here, on their excellent site: http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2014/11/18/kathy-page-on-her-new-collection-and-tourists-right-at-the-burnt-out-end-of-human-history/     “The stories in Kathy Page’s new collection Paradise & Elsewhere revel in discontinuity. Whether exploring the ruins of a fallen civilization, finding unexpected tension in the interactions between tourists and the residents of … Continue reading Paradise, Elsewhere, Alphabet: interview for Volume 1 →

A long and very thoughtful review from  Dustin Kurtz which digs deeply into the stories in Paradise & Elsewhere and the impulses behind them. The first part is quoted, and a link to the rest follows: ‘Early in Paradise & Elsewhere, her latest short-story collection, Kathy Page places readers in an Edenic oasis of plenitude, communal … Continue reading Transcendent: Dustin Kurtz reviews Kathy Page’s Paradise & Elsewhere in Music and Literature →

Of the longlist, the jury writes: “We’re celebrating writers brave enough to change public discourse, generous with their empathy, offering deeply immersive experiences. Some delve into the sack of memory and retrieve the wisdom we need for our times, others turn the unfamiliar beloved. All are literary achievements we feel will touch and even transform … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere nominated for the Giller Prize →

The Long List July 23rd 2014 Paradise and Elsewhere  Short story marvel Kathy Page emerges as the Alice Munro of the supernatural from these heartfelt tales of shapeshifting swimmers, mild-mannered cannibals, and personality-shifting viruses transmitted through kisses.

Minneapolis StarTribune review of Paradise & Elsewhere BOOK REVIEW: A mind-bending collection of stories about transformation and adaptation, full of startling ideas, capricious characters and uncanny goings-on. “Paradise Elsewhere,” stories by Kathy Page. Readers can only take so much of happy lives and promised lands in fiction. We are a cruel bunch who revel in … Continue reading A mind-bending collection of stories about transformation and adaptation →

http://www.frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net/site/?page_id=334

Paradise and Elsewhere  comes out in the USA this month. Here in Upcoming4me  is an article about the background to the book, and how one  the stories, “Low Tide,” was inspired by a trip to Oregon. For years, I carried the idea of a new short story collection in the back of my mind, yet did … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere in Upcoming4me →

Kathy Page’s story, “The Kissing Disease” features this week on Storyville, who e-publish one story each week from the best story collections published by commercial and independent presses. What a great idea!  To quote form their information “Storyville was launched to  change the way you interact with the world of literature through your iPad, iPhone, … Continue reading The Kissing Disease on Storyville →

 “When I started working on this cover, the word that kept coming up to describe Kathy Page’s collection was “lush.” The characters and narratives seem to exist in an almost mythic place, outside of an identifiable time  . I knew I needed a strong image to reflect this book….” June’s  Cover to Cover  in Quill and … Continue reading Cover to Cover →

Full of Lit reviews Paradise & Elsewhere: “Amy Bloom called Paradise & Elsewhere a “moody, shape-shifting, provocative” collection, and that’s a good place to start. Imagine stories as moody and incendiary as Angela Carter’s, but as wondrous as One Hundred Years of Solitude. This collection is a departure for Page, whose previous works (includingAlphabet and The Story of My Face) were much more … Continue reading Travel, Trade, Money and Sex: stories as moody and incendiary as Angela Carter’s, but as wondrous as One Hundred Years of Solitude. →

Please join Anansi and Biblioasis as we launch two exciting new literary fiction titles @ Biblioasis Bookstore! Governor General’s and Orange Prize nominee Kathy Page will be launching her new collection Paradise & Elsewhere (Biblioasis 2014), a book of dark fables and magical realism. Reminiscent of the darker work of Angela Carter and the fabulism of Borges, it notches a new path through the wild, lush, half-fantastic and half-real … Continue reading Launch in Windsor →

Upcoming  Toronto: two Eh-list  library readings.  I will be reading at the Barbara Frum  library on the 27th May  and North York on the 28th May. Both events are free and  run 7:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m. “In these mythical, magical stories Kathy Page parts company with traditional wisdom to blaze a new trail through the wild, lush, … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere in Toronto May 27th and 28th 2014 →

Strange,  beguiling… sensuous, verdant… wicked.. surprising and perfectly executed: a great review of Kathy Page’s Paradise & Elsewhere from Stephen W. Beattie, special to the National Post. http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/05/09/shortcuts-circus-and-paradise-elsewhere/ “I like to look,” says the narrator of one of Kathy Page’s strange, beguiling new stories. “In trains, buses, gardens, at films, even those in languages I don’t … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere in the National Post, Stephen W. Beattie →

Paradise and Elsewhere, by Kathy Page, Biblioasis, 160 pages, $18.95 In one of Paradise and Elsewhere’s later stories a woman looks through a window of wartime glass “faulted so that the whole world seem[ed] drunken-strange.” The view through the warped and bubbled pane is an apt description for how these stories work: In each we think we … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere in the Globe’s “best in new small press books.” →

Collections tackle ‘alternate reality,’ novelists’ faults By Brett Josef Grubisic, Special to The Sun Read online What can be gleaned from the following characters picked more or less at random from 22 stories: a domesticated mermaid, an exceptionally vain genius, a student literally consumed by tree roots, a fatuous British Columbian dandy on a hunt … Continue reading “Immersive, mystery-laden tales” Paradise & Elsewhere in the Vancouver Sun →

The first reaction to Paradise & Elsewhere: thanks to Charlene Van Buekenhout for a great review, and  for the care she takes not to spoil readers’ experiences of the stories by  giving away too much. “…realistic, feminist, apocalyptic, fairytale, cautionary tale, origin story, mystery. She’s got it all, and she is unapologetic about delivering the goods. … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere in the Winnipeg Review →

Paradise & Elsewhere is out of the box! Upcoming events include: 29th April: Long Story Short at The Cultch, 1895 Venables Street, Vancouver, 7pm. Join short story writers C.P. Boyko and Kathy Page as they launch their latest collections. Kathy Page, nominee for the Governor General’s Award and the Orange Prize, presents what Barbara Gowdy calls … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere, upcoming events →

Paradise & Elsewhere Stories by Kathy Page Biblioasis, April 2014 “The rubble of an ancient civilization. A village in a valley from which no one comes or goes. A forest of mother-trees, whispering to each other through their roots; a lakeside lighthouse where a girl slips into human skin as lightly as an otter into … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere →

Paradise & Elsewhere is up for a CBC Bookie award in the short fiction category. Voting is open  until Feb 23rd: http://www.cbc.ca/books/bookies2015/  This collection has been on some great lists, including the long list  for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Dan Vyleta selected Paradise & Elsewhere as his book of the year in the Walrus  “Short List.” … Continue reading Paradise & Elsewhere and lists →

It’s out! The current bright red issue of Canadian Notes & Queries celebrates the work of John Metcalf, writer, critic and editor extraordinaire. Tucked in amongst appreciations of John from Kim Jernigan, Clark Blaise, Caroline Adderson and many others, is a short story of mine, “G’Ming,” from the collection Paradise & Elsewhere, forthcoming with Biblioasis … Continue reading Reading in Real Time →

It’s done! I’ve  just sent the final edit of the text of my  collection of short stories, Paradise & Elsewhere,  to Biblioasis. Years of work go into a book; sending it out ushers in a delicious cocktail of  emotions, which may include (but is not limited to) satisfaction, lassitude, excitement, euphoria, anxiety, and exhaustion. The net … Continue reading Biblioasis →