In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor Jesmyn Ward says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair." The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own lives. From a stirring portrait of Rodney King's final days to a surreal video game set in the Middle East, with real consequences, to an Indigenous boy's gripping escape from his captors, this collection renders profoundly empathetic depictions of the variety of human experience. These stories are poignant reminders of the possibilities of fiction: as you sink into world after world, become character after character, as Ward writes, you "forget yourself, and then, upon surfacing, know yourself and others anew"--Book jacket.

This book presents a selection of the best works of short fiction of 2019, from a variety of acclaimed sources.

Hand-picked authors and a literary legacy... You may want to read it in one quick bite... Or savor it slowly like fine Swiss chocolate... One delicious prose at a time! For 22 years, SF lovers from around the world have enjoyed the stories and poems of the Tesseracts series, ( Tesseracts One through Tesseracts Ten , and Tesseracts Q ). This unique collection of books has featured the work of some of Canada's finest speculative fiction writers, selected and edited by ever changing combinations of editors, hand-picked for each edition. For many science fiction writers, Tesseracts was a spring board to their fame. Tesseracts Eleven brings the series to a new height, with a tasty blend of past and present writers, with their own individual visions of the future. The literature of Tesseracts Eleven has been critically selected and shaped into the collection you see by this year's editors, two of Canada's finest writers - acclaimed authors Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips. Together they have chosen a powerful combination of works by well-known writers, as well as newer authors whose futures you will want to follow. Some favorite Tesseracts ingredients are a featured part of this edition's literary blend: some very popular award winning names in Canada's SF scene, like Canada's grand dame of speculative fiction, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Claude Lalumiere, David Nickle and Candas Jane Dorsey, to name just a few. As well, readers will find some bright new stars in the science fiction world like Yukon's Jerome Stueart, or Calgary's Susan Forest - just 2 of the delicious authors featured in this fine offering. All told, Doctorow and Phillips have presented 22 pieces of literary delights to tantalize your imagination, and although you may want to consume the book in one sitting - take your time, and savor each exquisite morsel - delight in every bite. Grab your favorite beverage, settle down, and enjoy the latest in Canada's literary legacy - Tesseracts Eleven

"Pyromaniacs, vigilantes, mysterious phenomena, prehistoric beasts, cryptid species, grave robbers and ghosts... the stories of Ghost Lake feature a cast of interrelated characters and their brushes with the supernatural, creatures of Ojibwe cosmology, the Spirit World, and with monsters, both human and otherwise. Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler shows us that the precolonial past is not so distant, that history informs the present, and nothing is ever truly lost or destroyed, because the land remembers."--

In the title story, a father and his young daughter stumble into a bizarre version of his immigrant childhood. A mysterious tech conference brings a writer to Montreal, where he discovers new designs on the past in "How It Used to Be." A grandfather's Yiddish letters expose a love affair and a wartime secret in "Little Rooster." In "Childhood," Mark's concern about his son's phobias evokes a shameful incident from his own adolescence. In "Roman's Song," Roman's desire to help a new immigrant brings him into contact with a sordid underworld. At his father's request, Victor returns to Riga, the city of his birth, where his loyalties are tested by the man he might have been in "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave." And, in the noir-inspired "The Russian Riviera," Kostya leaves Russia to pursue a boxing career only to find himself working as a doorman in a garish nightclub in the Toronto suburbs. In these deeply felt, slyly humorous stories, Bezmozgis pleads no special causes but presents immigrant characters with all their contradictions and complexities, their earnest and divided hearts.

Fake ID is a collection of short essays in urban settings. Stuck in coffee shops, bad jobs, SUV's and the United States of America, Tamaki's characters explore and resist social constructions, while seeking sanity and some form of definition. In the tradition of her earlier work, Tamaki mixes social commentary with dry wit, poking fun, not simply at racial, cultural, and sexual prejudice, but also at the ridiculous way these stereotypes play out in everyday life. In Fake ID, identity is not a welcome social construct, but an ugly sweater society gives you for your birthday that doesn't fit and clashes with everything you own.

For All The Men (and Some of The Women) I've Known explores the complexity of relationships, from love to betrayal. In the book's unforgettable stories, Botha creates characters so authentic, readers are convinced that they know the characters personally. Botha excels at blending literary techniques with popular zeitgeist, creating stories that read like a combination of Liar by Lynn Crosbie with Lena Dunham's "Girls." With her signature honesty, Botha exposes the desire for human connection above all things. The collection is hopeful, fearless and utterly relatable.

A South African copywriter is transplanted to the urban jungle of Manhattan. A recovering rape victim tries to resume a normal life. A Toronto nurse cuts herself to fill her emptiness. Through the short stories of this collection and the distinct resonance of each narrative voice, the private lives of twelve different women are explored with only one question in mind, What is it like to be them? From addiction to abuse, childhood to suicide, and from Johannesburg to downtown Toronto, the prose of the stories is compassionate, provocative, and often funny but always fearless.

Product Description Each year Tesseract Books chooses a team of editors from among the best of Canada’s writers, publishers and critics to select innovative and futuristic fiction and poetry from the leaders and emerging voices in Canadian speculative fiction. This is the anthology that started it all! Featuring fiction by Élisabeth Vonarburg and Hugo and Nebula award winning authors Spider Robinson, and William Gibson. Review "The reader who ventures into Tesseracts territory is assured of meeting some of our most able and gifted writers in surroundings that are at once wholly strange, and wholly familiar." - The Globe and Mail -"This anthology merits inclusion in any comprehensive collection, and it rewards the curiosity of the casual reader as well." - Locus Magazine - From the Author Hi, I'm Rhea Rose, one of the author's in this collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories. My story is called "Chronos' Christmas" and you can find that science fiction story here. If you google you can find the story available on other sites,too. My story was nominated for the Aurora Award (Canadian award) the year this collection was published, but I lost to Judith Merril who was also nominated and won for this collection. I was happy to see her get it! After all she did select my story for this, the first book in the Tesseracts legacy. Over the years my stories have appeared in many other of the Tesseracts collections. I'm hoping I can get Amazon to post the cover copy here, as they have for this one. About the Author The late Judith Merril is considered one of the most prolific authors and editors in the field of Science Fiction. Born in New York in 1923, she founded the Futurians, a group of SF writers and editors. Her first SF story, ‘That Only a Mother,’ was published in 1948. Judith edited numerous SF anthologies including Dell’s Year’s Best SF from 1956-1967, and was the ‘Books’ columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1965-69.

"Twelve exquisitely written stories depicting the search for human connection and the attempt to fit in far from home. All the Shining People explores migration, diaspora, and belonging within Toronto's Jewish South African community, as individuals come to terms with the oppressive hierarchies that separate, and the connections that bind. Seeking a place to belong, the book's characters -- including a life-drawing model searching the streets for her lover; a woman confronting secrets from her past in the new South Africa; and a man grappling with the legacy of his father, a former political prisoner -- crave authentic relationships that replicate the lost feeling of home. With its focus on family, culture, and identity, All the Shining People captures the experiences of immigrants and outsiders with honesty, subtlety, and deep sympathy."--

"When Elaine Levine's eccentric older brother, Isaac, moves back from LA to the quiet suburb of Thornhill, Ontario, to help her care for her suddenly motherless grandchildren, he finds himself embroiled in even more neighbourhood drama than he would like. Meanwhile, a nanny, miles from her own family in the Philippines, cares for a young boy who doesn't fit in at school. In a house down the street, a young mother is given the news that her marriage is over by her mother-in-law while her husband sits silent. And a woman in mid-life contends with the task of cleaning out the house in which she grew up, while her teenage son struggles with why his dad moved out. This stunningly intimate collection of stories, which spans fifteen years in the lives of the Levine family and the other characters, is an exquisite portrait of a Jewish community, the secular and religious families who inhabit it, and the tensions that exist there, by a writer with a keen eye for detail, a gentle sense of humour, and an immense literary talent."--

"First published in 1972, Columbus and the Fat Lady introduced readers to Governor General's Literary Award-winning author Matt Cohen's skewed and hilarious worldview. By turns funny, surreal, wistful, savagely satirical, and brilliantly inventive, the stories in this collection intrigue and surprise the reader with their unexpected language and plots. He conjures up images that are both absurd and perceptive. From Sir Galahad as a schoolteacher to Christopher Columbus as a carnival attraction, these stories feature the improbable with strength and virtuosity. This collection is a foray into the jungles of life on this planet and the tangled but fascinating interiors of the human head."--

"Levine is a true artist, who grinds his bones--and anything else he can get his hands on--to make his bread." -- The Sunday Times Reminiscent of Bernard Malamud and Cynthia Ozick, Norman Levine's short fiction was largely ignored in his lifetime. Yet they remain some of the most skillfully-crafted and moving works of the last half of the twentieth century. Taken together, these stories make a convincing argument for Levine's mastery, and as a writer in need of urgent rediscovery.

The first book of fiction since 1997 from the consummately underground Stuart Ross blends a characteristic penchant for experiment with the measured skill of a seasoned, highly disciplined craftsman. A man steps out for a pack of smokes and winds up walking around the planet; a woman sun-tanning by a pool finds herself covered in chicken feet; a guerrilla army of cows infiltrates a big city; a man hires a bodyguard to protect him from his poodle. Ross's stories hold a mirror to the absurdities of 21st-century earth; his is an absurdism so true that it becomes real.

"At times comic, tender, dark, and arrestingly bizarre, Gary Barwin's latest fiction collection marvels at the strangeness, charm, and beauty that is contemporary life in the quantum world. Ranging from short story to postcard fiction, Barwin's stories are luminous, hilarious, and surprising. A billionaire falls in love with a kitchen appliance, a couple share a pair of legs, a pipeline-size hair is given the Nobel Prize only so that it can be taken away, a father remembers with tenderness the radiant happiness of his teenage child, trapped inside his body. As the Utne Reader said of his last collection, "what makes them so compelling is Barwin's balance of melancholy with wide-eyed wonder.""--Back cover.