In Lisa Moore's first story collection, the joys and distresses of love course through modern-day Newfoundland like an electric current. These bright, engaging tales mark precious moments in the characters' lives against deceptively prosaic settings - a hospital cafeteria lit only by the lights in the snack machines, a half-built house "like a rib cage around a lungful of sky" - and the results linger long in the memory. In "Nipple of Paradise," Moore jumps back and forth in time between the birth of a child and a mother's unraveling marriage. "Wisdom Teeth" uses short, startling vignettes to weave together the story of a young woman. With lovingly constructed sentences and lush prose, Moore shows readers that love, alongside desire, can sometimes come softly, and sometimes as an ambush.

About the Author

Lisa Moore, author of Degrees of Nakedness, lives in St. John's, Newfoundland. She has won first prize from the Writer's Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Newfoundland Arts and Letters Competition, and has a BA from the Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design. Her stories have been published in magazines across the country, including Prism, Event, Canadian Fiction Magazine, Tickleace, and The New Quarterly, and have been featured on CBC Radio, in Extremities: Stories from the Burning Rock, and Coming Attractions 1994 (Oberon).

Lisa Moore's stories are bright, emotionally engaging, tangible. She marks out the precious moments of her characters' lives against deceptively commonplace backdrops — a St. John's hospital cafeteria lit only by the lights in the snack machines; a half-built house "like a rib cage around a lungful of sky" — and the results linger long in the memory. The Collected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore shows us that love, alongside desire, can sometimes come as a surprise, sometimes an ambush. She splices moments and images together so adroitly, so vividly, you'll swear you've lived them yourself. This new volume, bringing together Lisa Moore’s first two books of stories, Open and Degrees of Nakedness, is the very best way to encounter one of the finest short-story writers in the country. This edition features a brilliant new introduction by Jane Urquhart on the importance of Moore’s work.

About the Author

Lisa Moore: Lisa Moore is the acclaimed author of the novels February, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Alligator, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Commonwealth Fiction Prize (Canada and the Caribbean), and the short-story collections Open, which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, and Degrees of Nakedness. Lisa Moore's books have been translated into many languages and published around the world. She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.