Confidence: Stories

by Melanie Little

In this brilliant debut collection, Melanie Little emerges as a bold new voice with ten smart stories that explore and explode the concept of confidence in all of its contradictory meanings, suggesting a very fine line between trust and treachery. In Little's world, a Grade 6 schoolgirl grapples with having a left leg that is four inches longer than her right leg, a father once bursting with temerity descends into gambling addiction and leaves a legacy to his daughter in the form of a $500 casino chip, and a disgruntled saleswoman induces self-inflicted highway robbery while a celebrity photographer finds desperate assurance in stalking his subjects. Singing with brightness and despair, the deliciously wacky and beautiful tenor of these stories rings true, but also surprises. In the indomitable spirit of confidence, Little reveals how vulnerable and delicate we all really are, and in the process joins the vanguard of young Canadian urban writers. She is a hugely talented young writer to watch.

Genres: Short Stories

248 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Melanie Little decided she wanted to be a writer roughly around the time she became conscious. Or, to be more exact, around the time she became conscious of words. Her first book, self-published when she was three years old, was about a family of bank robbers (though she called them "banque" robbers, proof, perhaps, of the bilingual nature of northern Ontario, where she grew up). The book was well received, though there were some problems with production (Melanie had a habit of stapling things up the wrong side).

She was born in Peterborough, Ontario, but when she was two weeks old, she and her parents moved north to Timmins, where her father became a reporter for the Timmins Daily Press. A trip to the Timmins library--a beautiful stone building that’s since been replaced by a newer, shinier one--was the best part of her week. Her parents had begun reading to her when she was still a baby, and they showed her that libraries, even a small library in her hometown, could contain the whole world.

Melanie still reads just about everything she can get her hands on, which is what she advises all aspiring writers to do. Particular influences have been Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood, and Alice Munro. She's also an avid film fan, and thinks directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Abbas Kiarostami, and Robert Altman can teach you more about good storytelling than a whole army of how-to books.

No one writer was more responsible for making Melanie want to write books of her own than Dr. Seuss. She particularly loved The Sneetches, a story about a strange race of creatures, some of whom have stars on their bellies ("stars on thars") and some of whom don't. She hopes that at least a sliver of what she's learned from Dr. Seuss has made its way into The Apprentice's Masterpiece (2008), which is also a story about discrimination arising from ludicrous ideas of what is "different."

The Apprentice's Masterpiece is a book of firsts: it is her first novel, her first book for young adults, and also her first book written in verse. It has been the recipient of the Young Adult Honour Award given by the Canadian Library Association; a 2009 Nautilus Silver Award; the 2009 Independent Publisher Book Award, and was nominated by the YALSA 2009 Best Books for Young Adults committee.

Melanie has won numerous awards for her other work as well. Her highly acclaimed short-story collection Confidence was named a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2003 and was short-listed for the Danuta Gleed Award. Melanie was the 2005–2006 Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, and she continues to work with other writers through workshops, classes, and consultations. In 2009, Melanie was recruited by Annick Press to be editor-at-large for a new fiction series, Single Voice. She also edited What My Father Gave Me (Fall 2010), a collection of stories by seven outstanding women who give deeply personal accounts of the relationship with their fathers during their teen years.

Melanie has moved around a lot, living in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Halifax. She is now back in Toronto, where she was recently appointed Senior Editor of Canadian Fiction at the House of Anansi. She loves cities, but no particular one has really seemed to stick to her yet. Her idea of “home” is, instead, a person: her husband, Peter Norman. Peter is also a writer, and they have many conversations about writing (which is not as pompous as it sounds: most of these consist of moaning about how hard writing is). Their cat, Catso, also loves writing, but she generally expresses her appreciation by sitting on it.