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Racket: New Writing Made in Newfoundland
In Racket, editor and acclaimed fiction writer Lisa Moore introduces us to ten of the most exciting new writers currently at work in Newfoundland. Featuring a diverse range of previously unpublished short stories, this unique anthology showcases a generation of voices soon to emerge as the next great wave of Newfoundland writers.
- GenresShort StoriesCanada
184 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2015
2 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Moore
75 books292 followersLisa Moore has written two collections of stories, Degrees of Nakedness and Open, as well as a novel, Alligator.
Open and Alligator were both nominated for the Giller Prize. Alligator won the Commonwealth Prize for the Canadian Caribbean Region and the ReLit Award, and Open won the Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Prize for Short Fiction.
Lisa has also written for television, radio, magazines (EnRoute, The Walrus and Chatelaine) and newspapers (The Globe and Mail and The National Post).
Lisa has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She also studied at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she became a member of The Burning Rock Collective, a group of St. John's writers.
Open and Alligator were both nominated for the Giller Prize. Alligator won the Commonwealth Prize for the Canadian Caribbean Region and the ReLit Award, and Open won the Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Prize for Short Fiction.
Lisa has also written for television, radio, magazines (EnRoute, The Walrus and Chatelaine) and newspapers (The Globe and Mail and The National Post).
Lisa has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She also studied at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she became a member of The Burning Rock Collective, a group of St. John's writers.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 18, 2016
11 short stories from up and coming authors from Newfoundland.
The Jawbone Box by Matthew Lewis- Odd and evocative. The Coen brothers could make this into a movie. 3.5 stars
Gorillas by Jenina MacGillvray- Bittersweet. Reminded me of a Shirley Jackson story. A slice of not so normal life. 4 stars
Crossbeams by Iain McCurdy- The least professional of the bunch. The choppy, halting style didn't work, for me. 1 star
Holes by Melissa Marbeau- This was my favourite. At only 8 pages long, I wanted to know more. Good and creepy. 4 stars
23 Things I Hate in No Particular Order by Gary Newhook- Depressing. Like a suicide note written by Andy Rooney. 2 stars
Benched by Susan Sinnott- Great build-up for such a short story. I felt for the characters. A bit melodramatic. 3 stars
Like Jewels by Jamie Fitzpatrick- This one had the unfortunate chance to be the third, super depressing story in a row. I can't say I liked it. 2 stars
Rescue by Carrie Ivardi- Too all-over-the-place. I never had any idea where I was in the story. And the teenaged love/angst was lost on me. 1 star
A Holy Show by Melanie Oates- I liked it. A realistic look at how sad life gets when it's lived at the bar. 3 stars
KC Accidental by Morgan Murray- Finally a funny story! Even if it's about death. Well written, tragic and comic. This is the best of the bunch. 4 stars
A Drawer Full of Guggums by Sharon Bala- Hmmm...I don't think I 'got' this one and I was too bored to read it again. 1 star
The Jawbone Box by Matthew Lewis- Odd and evocative. The Coen brothers could make this into a movie. 3.5 stars
Gorillas by Jenina MacGillvray- Bittersweet. Reminded me of a Shirley Jackson story. A slice of not so normal life. 4 stars
Crossbeams by Iain McCurdy- The least professional of the bunch. The choppy, halting style didn't work, for me. 1 star
Holes by Melissa Marbeau- This was my favourite. At only 8 pages long, I wanted to know more. Good and creepy. 4 stars
23 Things I Hate in No Particular Order by Gary Newhook- Depressing. Like a suicide note written by Andy Rooney. 2 stars
Benched by Susan Sinnott- Great build-up for such a short story. I felt for the characters. A bit melodramatic. 3 stars
Like Jewels by Jamie Fitzpatrick- This one had the unfortunate chance to be the third, super depressing story in a row. I can't say I liked it. 2 stars
Rescue by Carrie Ivardi- Too all-over-the-place. I never had any idea where I was in the story. And the teenaged love/angst was lost on me. 1 star
A Holy Show by Melanie Oates- I liked it. A realistic look at how sad life gets when it's lived at the bar. 3 stars
KC Accidental by Morgan Murray- Finally a funny story! Even if it's about death. Well written, tragic and comic. This is the best of the bunch. 4 stars
A Drawer Full of Guggums by Sharon Bala- Hmmm...I don't think I 'got' this one and I was too bored to read it again. 1 star
April 11, 2017
Previously unpublished short stories from budding authors from Newfoundland. I love writers from Newfoundland who write about their home province. They are truly a gift, and not given enough recognition for this gift. Very unique. We need to read more books from this province. I can recommend many if you want to get started my friends!
August 26, 2019
This book was a delight inside and out. The cover is perfect, and the stories inside were quite enjoyable. As with all short story collections, there are some that are better than others, but I think as a whole it's a well-curated collection, and one I'm happy to have on my shelves.
November 25, 2015
This is a fantastic collection of short fiction by some of Newfoundlands most exciting new writers. My absolute fave was Morgan Murray's "KC Accidental". An absolute riot! Also really enjoyed "23 Things I Hate in No Particular Order" and "A Drawer Full of Guggums". All in all a very strong collection. I love how short stories offer the reader a whirlwind, power packed adventure that has been condensed into a brief burst. They read like a punch to the face which leaves you reeling and regurgitating the content long after the cover has closed. I've thought about these stories far longer than it took me to ingest them the first time.
October 13, 2018
Hard to rate this book because some of the stories are easily worth 5 stars, and others are garbage. Really great cover design, and a nice premise—publishing a group of writers who know each other and have that kind of writing-group cohort kind of vibe. While Moore’s introduction definitely accounts for the kind of easy dismissals of creative writing programs that a lot of people make, the writing itself within the collection does not shrug off the “went and did an MA and all sort of have that exact same uni-trained literary sounding short fiction” style. The more often I hear people defending MA writing programs the less I want to listen to the arguments they’re making; are these graduates really so hard done by, most of whom come out of school with enough networking and a developed enough thesis to publish something right away, whether or not they ever spent any time on developing a writing practice before those two years in grad school? Are they really under siege? Or is there a preemptive kneejerk defense that keeps getting carried out?
Like I said, Moore’s argument for these programs and the diversity of their output is pretty soundly made, but vouching for that quality at the front end of this book maybe harms the collection, drawing conspicuous attention to the possibility that maybe these cohorts really are producing lackluster writing.
Anthologies are always a crapshoot. When I criticize writers for sounding too “university-trained” they never tend to take the note well (see: metatron poets, screencapping my 4/5 star reviews and complaining on their Instagram accounts that their extended university training wasn’t that creative and that I shouldn’t say their work sounds like it’s too academic to be read by most people (which is NOT the case with a lot of poetry, and is something we ought to be mindful of and maybe try to correct coming out of humanities echo-chambers)); maybe going to school and learning how to argue anything you want with rhetoric instead of learning how to argue about important things meaningfully is part of what makes for a watery Left? Hard to say.
Remember: this is a goodreads review, and I’m typing this on my phone to help mark something I read at a certain point in time that I may not recollect in a year or two; this isn’t some extended exposé about how Metatron doesn’t publish enough Canadian writers, or how they welched on providing feedback to most of the writers who paid for it without offering full refunds on the entry fee in their last contest that offered it (and it’s certainly not me going to Maisonneuve or something and complaining that the feedback they did provide the lucky few they completed it for was so vague and terrible as to expose the complete lack of care or insight they brought to the table, if they even read the damn things). This is not a review about Metatron books (most of which I still purchase and read and refuse to review here now because I don’t really feel like they need any more attention or encouragement than they really get being middling young creative writers), but it’s a review that I feel compelled to include this sidebar in, because sometimes maybe we’ve gotta acknowledge when new writing is shitty and that maybe MAs are giving undue credentials to bad writing that needs a few more years getting developed before it’s worth bringing to the table. This is tangential, and informal, and this is me getting my thoughts out on a diaristic app that helps me recall what exactly I did and didn’t like about books in the future.
The stories this writing group produced over about three years following grad school sometimes shine (Lewis, McCurdy, Oates and Baka), but in such close proximity you start to see the gimmicks that undergird (PLAGUE) literary short fiction, and the moments of magic get buried.
If you’re interested in really strong emerging writing, maybe look to Oberon’s “Coming Attractions” series, edited by Mark Anthony Jarman, who is very fussy.
If you have an interest in NFLD-specific emerging short-fiction writing anthologies, I guess this is your only option, and I hope it makes you happier than it made me.
Like I said, Moore’s argument for these programs and the diversity of their output is pretty soundly made, but vouching for that quality at the front end of this book maybe harms the collection, drawing conspicuous attention to the possibility that maybe these cohorts really are producing lackluster writing.
Anthologies are always a crapshoot. When I criticize writers for sounding too “university-trained” they never tend to take the note well (see: metatron poets, screencapping my 4/5 star reviews and complaining on their Instagram accounts that their extended university training wasn’t that creative and that I shouldn’t say their work sounds like it’s too academic to be read by most people (which is NOT the case with a lot of poetry, and is something we ought to be mindful of and maybe try to correct coming out of humanities echo-chambers)); maybe going to school and learning how to argue anything you want with rhetoric instead of learning how to argue about important things meaningfully is part of what makes for a watery Left? Hard to say.
Remember: this is a goodreads review, and I’m typing this on my phone to help mark something I read at a certain point in time that I may not recollect in a year or two; this isn’t some extended exposé about how Metatron doesn’t publish enough Canadian writers, or how they welched on providing feedback to most of the writers who paid for it without offering full refunds on the entry fee in their last contest that offered it (and it’s certainly not me going to Maisonneuve or something and complaining that the feedback they did provide the lucky few they completed it for was so vague and terrible as to expose the complete lack of care or insight they brought to the table, if they even read the damn things). This is not a review about Metatron books (most of which I still purchase and read and refuse to review here now because I don’t really feel like they need any more attention or encouragement than they really get being middling young creative writers), but it’s a review that I feel compelled to include this sidebar in, because sometimes maybe we’ve gotta acknowledge when new writing is shitty and that maybe MAs are giving undue credentials to bad writing that needs a few more years getting developed before it’s worth bringing to the table. This is tangential, and informal, and this is me getting my thoughts out on a diaristic app that helps me recall what exactly I did and didn’t like about books in the future.
The stories this writing group produced over about three years following grad school sometimes shine (Lewis, McCurdy, Oates and Baka), but in such close proximity you start to see the gimmicks that undergird (PLAGUE) literary short fiction, and the moments of magic get buried.
If you’re interested in really strong emerging writing, maybe look to Oberon’s “Coming Attractions” series, edited by Mark Anthony Jarman, who is very fussy.
If you have an interest in NFLD-specific emerging short-fiction writing anthologies, I guess this is your only option, and I hope it makes you happier than it made me.
June 17, 2019
Great work from many upcoming authors
March 22, 2016
This Lisa Moore edited collection is a selection of short stories by members of Memorial University’s Creative Writing program. As a collection of short stories from a variety of authors this book can be rated on its weakest story, on an average of each story, or, as I have chosen to do, for what the book in its entirety achieves. I give it five stars. There are stories that I did not enjoy as much as others and a few that I enjoyed tremendously (notably Morgan Murray’s absurdly funny “KC Accidental”). However, I feel that what makes to volume successful is that each story is very well crafted and thoughtful and reading the collection has prompted me to add a number of previously unknown authors (unknown to me at least) to my list of authors to watch for a read. That alone makes the book a success worthy of five stars (oh, and the delightful Purity Hard Bread inspired cover helped as well).
December 13, 2018
5.0/5.0
Hidden Gems:
And even in his dirtbag state, he's only the best thing I've ever seen.
Hidden Gems:
And even in his dirtbag state, he's only the best thing I've ever seen.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews