On an isolated English beach a man looks back on his school days, recalling the joy and torment of a secret love affair with a boy full of strange ideas, a boy obsessed with the language of the King James Bible. Moments from their relationship return to him: the hidden meetings on the beach, the first attempts at sex, the boredom of a school assembly in summertime, the cruelty of a young English teacher. But most of all he remembers the boy’s words. They’re words that, years later, will ha...

FPQ Complete Collection 1 contains sixteen exceptional stories that were hand-picked by the Found Press staff and originally published in FPQ volumes 1-4. With a stunning range of voices, the unforgettable narratives included in this anthology will take you on a journey around the world, and pull you from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. Featuring stories by Caroline Adderson, Meghan Rose Allen, Jack Bootle, Julie Dupuis, Cynthia Flood, Andrew Forbes, Danny...

In Jack Bootle's Psalm 77, a man looks back on his school days, recalling the joy and torment of a secret love affair with a boy obsessed with the language of the King James Bible. Deep in Ontario cottage country, twins try to navigate the differences between the families we are born into versus the families we choose in Meghan Rose Allen's Eleven Miles There, Twelve Miles Back. On his final assignment, Father Michael is assigned to a war-torn country where he is told a s...

Father Michael, in his final assignment, has been asked by his Order to help facilitate recovery of an Asian country blighted by war. On the long odyssey into the interior, his driver and translator Trang tells him a story set in a once-famed traveller’s refuge known as the Inn of Tender Embraces. What starts as a simple tale of ill-fated lovers becomes, for Father Michael, a familiar beacon that guides him through the mists of an exotic landscape.“Don McLellan is the kind of wise,...

Some time after the incomprehensible death of his son, Joan Miró has settled into his new job working the overnight shift at a Hasty Market in Toronto. He has plenty of time to think beneath the fluorescent lights of the convenience store: of ghosts and late nights, of downtown living and dying, of customer service and self-preservation, of the beauty of the night sky, and of the attempts people make to connect with one another despite seemingly insurmountable distances. These fragments of...

Deep in the heart of Ontario cottage country, Izza Ingram’s biological family disintegrates when her parents become trapped in a moment Izza can barely remember. Lost to their parents, she and her sister Paulie form an unlikely family unit under the guidance of their parents’ friend Doug. In this trio of their own making, Izza, Paulie, and Doug try to navigate the differences between the families we are born into versus the families we choose.

Charlotte is on the cusp of adolescence, and her world is being turned upside down. Unable to turn to her distant mother or absent father, she searches for guidance on the streets of downtown Toronto—and discovers God (or some version of Him) in the gutter.“The Last Judgment is a story that penetrates into the heart of childhood sadness. Charlotte is without tools to fix what is broken, except for the incredible force of her will. The connections she makes between religion...

The sleepy town of Arbford is a house of cards, and Betty is the sudden gust of wind that unknowingly knocks it to the ground. In this insightful tale, where each of the men is called Mike, and each of their wives have a different name, Betty discovers that finding somewhere to call home isn’t easy. Fun, emotional, and intelligent, Mike Mike Mike Mike is a modern-day fable with a bit of Desperate Housewives thrown in for good measure.“In this cautionary suburban fairy tale...

What Endures is a story of powerful love. It is a story that will break your heart. Inspired by true events, it tells of the incredible bond between a mother and daughter, and with gut-wrenching poignancy reminds us of the little things that make life worth living.“Holdstock’s writing manages to be both heartbreakingly poetic and densely detailed … sad passages, ghostlike recollections, written almost from the vantage point of the present, establish the book as a great wor...

Having lived a long, eventful life, Charlie Weinheimer’s only regret is that he has no one to carry on after him. After a near-death experience, he resolves to find out whether a secret buried in his past is proof he has a legacy after all.“Margoshes gives us the life of Charlie Weinheimer: quadruple bypass patient, widower whose children all die tragically young, but not a whiner. In his hospital bed at age seventy-seven, he’s seen it all, right? Well, maybe not. Watch as Margoshe...

Trailer trash is what people in Port Regal, South Carolina call seventeen year old Savannah Jade Mason and her family. Savannah dreams of doing important, spectacular things, but it is unlikely she ever will given her spectacular ability for getting into trouble. When her mother dies, the family's circumstances sink further into the Lowcountry swamp. Adult responsibilities are thrust on Savannah overnight. She is the only one left to care for her elderly grandmother and little brother - Sa...

Coming out of an unhappy relationship and a stint at an artist colony, Charlotte, a writer, takes a job teaching at a private ESL college. There she befriends Renata—audacious, sexy, and as changeable as Proteus. “I have a story for you,” Renata says to her one day over lunch. She doesn’t elaborate further, but Charlotte soon discovers that she has found in Renata an unexpectedly passionate and compelling subject.“Caroline Adderson is such a graceful and intelligent writer that the...