A Nation the Size of a Thimble is based on the “micro” story that won the first Writers’ Union of Canada Postcard Story contest. Two people staying in a Halifax boarding house just after WW2 strike up a relationship based on sad stories. While visiting the cemetery where many of the dead from the Titanic are buried, she explains there is a dignity in suffering, but not in surviving. He tells her his story where survival cost him dearly.

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In Playing with Dirt, a woman who lost her husband on 9/11 deals with grief in the year after his death. He was not a victim of terrorism, but like so many in Manhattan, his body has not been found. In the following spring, she begins to discover bones in the huge yard of the sprawling farmhouse he had always wanted. Perhaps, she considers, if she can find them all and rebuild the skeleton, they will find his body too…

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Tune in this week for Big Bear Lake, by John Blackmore. Hearing the story of a young kid with cancer, Dan determines the boy should have the chance to go fishing, even if for just one special time. It was something his father had always promised, but never delivered. Yet, his undependable friends make the plan challenging.

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This week’s story is The Rogue Elephant, by John Blackmore. Reunite with the couple from The Tornado Lovers before they married. Charlotte and Bernard are backpacking in India and learn what happens when your sense of wonder, awe and love weakens, even in the presence of a wild elephant.

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In Skaterman Part 2, French athlete Alain has triumphed in the subway as the Silver Skater. He heads to the tip of Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty and is met by the woman who gave him the ride from Lake Placid. In the special Liberty hotel suite, they learn together a lesson about love and relationships. Note: contains profanity and adult situations.

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This week’s story is Skaterman by John Blackmore, and is in two parts. In Part 1, French athlete Alain Boisclair places fourth in all five speed-skating events at the Lake Placid Olympics.

Bitterly disappointed, he borrows a fellow Olympian’s bronze medal and hitches a ride to see the Statue of Liberty in New York City. His plans go awry during a violent altercation on the subway. Note: contains some profanity and adult situations.

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This week’s story is The Destroying Angel, by John Blackmore. An annual fall camping trip for three 40-something friends is upended by the inclusion of Tanner, a non-stop talker and alpha male. The situation goes from irritating to deadly with the discovery of a beautiful, poisonous mushroom.

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This week’s story, Mastering Surface Tension, is by Barbara Black. It won the Writers’ Union of Canada Short Story competition for 2017. Mastering Surface Tension takes us into the home and mind of an ordinary man with a sudden, extraordinary imagination. After a fall puts him in a coma, Bert experiences the world as if he were various insects. While human sympathy and the mundane play out around him, Bert learns to fly, mate, and walk on water.

Learn more about the writer at barbarablack.ca.

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This week’s story, Atomic Distances, takes us to a beach in Florida where an electrician watches over a group of partyers. He became addicted to saving people in mortal circumstances after trying to revive a colleague. That’s when he discovered the space separating life and death is measured in angstroms, or the width of atoms. And, that traversing those distances releases potent energy. Rip currents, as he notes, are killers.

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This week’s story, Ash, follows a young couple perilously close to the birth of their first child, the threat of ash falling on their carefully planned neighbourhood, and an older couple living next door who seem to be building a tower of household goods in their driveway.

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