Dave Margoshes

Dave Margoshes will be reading at Shelf Life Books in Calgary from his new story collection, God Telling a Joke and Other Stories, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2-4 p.m., at Shelf Life Books,1302 4th St. S.W. (corner of 13th Ave.)

Dave Margoshes

What is your latest release and what genre is it? God Telling a Joke and Other Stories. A collection of short stories published by Oolichan Books (Fernie, B.C.)

Quick description: Unlike my last book, A Book of Great Worth (Coteau Books, 2012), which was a collection of linked stories featuring a character much like my father, this collection contains totally unrelated stories. Among the characters in the sixteen stories are a 99-year-old stand-up comedian wearily challenging God to deliver the punch line; a lightning strike survivor whose luck finally runs out; a Princeton-educated trapper who transforms himself into the King of the Jews; a carnival sideshow “geek” with a glass jaw; the grieving son a woman famous for her beautiful breasts; and a writer, dubbed a “connoisseur of longing,” seeking to make amends. The stories range from laugh-out-loud comedy to wry satire to heart-wrenching romance to sober meditations on the nature of beauty, truth, life and death.

Brief biography:
I’ve published three novels, five volumes of poetry and a biography. God Telling a Joke and Other Stories is my seventh collection of short fiction. I’ve had stories and poems published in dozens of magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States (included six times in Best Canadian Stories), and had work broadcast on CBC. I was a finalist for the Journey Prize in 2009 and have won several awards – an earlier collection, Bix’s Trumpet and Other Stories, was Book of the Year at the Saskatchewan Book Awards and a finalist for the ReLit Award in 2007, and my poetry collection, Dimensions of an Orchard, won the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Prize at the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards. My most recent title, A Book of Great Worth, was one of Amazon.Ca’s Top Hundred Books of 2012.

Links to buy Dave’s book:
Oolichan Books has published this in a $19.95 trade paper edition and it is also available as a $9.95 ebook in Kobo, Kindle and Apple formats. It’s available from the author (davemargoshes (at) gmail.com), the publisher, at independent bookstores across Canada, and at Chapters-Indigo, Amazon and other on-line retailers.
Amazon Canada – eBook and Paperback
Amazon US – eBook and Paperback

Dave’s promo links:
I don’t have a website, but I’m on Facebook, and have pages on The Writers Union of Canada and The League of Canadian Poets websites

What are you working on now?
A new novel, Wiseman’s Wager, will be published in the fall. Work on that is done. I’m deeply immersed in a new novel, set in the Middle East.

Dave’s reading recommendation:
Short stories are my preferred reading. I really liked two story collections from Alberta writers, Astrid Blodgett’s* You Haven’t Changed a Bit, and Audrey Whitson’s The Glorious Mysteries; and two Saskatchewan collections, Proudflesh by Peggy Worrell, and Sweet Life by Linda Biasotto. I loved Saskatchewan poet dee Hobsbawn-Smith’s debut collection, wildness rushing in, and I’m a fan of the first two volumes of The Literary History of Saskatchewan, edited by David Carpenter.

*Astrid Blodgett was previously featured on Reading Recommendations in July, 2014.