Red Plaid Shirt

Diane Schoemperlen won the Governor General's Award for Fiction with Forms of Devotion, her collection of short stories and pictures. That same distinctive and wonderfully entertaining voice infuses this latest collection, a compendium of 21 stories chosen by Schoemperlen from new, out-of-print and favorite works. "Losing Ground" is a remarkable coming-of-age story; "The Man of My Dreams" pulls us into a place where we too wonder what is real and what is dreamed; and "Forms of Devotion" explores with delicate irony what it means to be faithful in a secular, consumer-driven world.

Every one of these pieces shines with Schoemperlen's fresh and often deadpan funny voice, offering a compulsively readable mix of deeply felt emotion and finely wrought intellect. Red Plaid Shirt was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Brewing Company Writers' Craft Award.