The Journey Prize Stories 22: The Best of Canada's New Writers

The Journey Prize Stories is Canada's most celebrated annual fiction anthology, presenting the best stories published each year by some of our most exciting up-and-coming writers.

Among the stories this year: Desperate to reinvent himself, a disgraced diplomat goes in search of a woman from his past in Eastern Croatia. As a teacher begins to unravel in the aftermath of a school shooting, a series of surprising encounters with her former students reveals differing degrees of resiliency. Bench presses and Wonder Woman Comics create an unexpected intimacy between a teenager and her Ukrainian-language tutor, a former female champion weight-lifter. After his junkie uncle moves into the basements to hide out from his dealer and get clean, a lonely boy's longing for a male role model threatens to lead him astray. When a famous author finds himself embroiled in a sex scandal while on his book tour, he discovers the only person he has left to turn to is his handler, a woman with secrets of her own. Cultural tradition gives way to modern-day Japanese efficiency when a long-married couple attend a meeting of Concerned Parents of Unmarried Offspring, a speed dating event for parents in search of spouses for their adult children.