UPEI faculty, staff, and alumni, featured prominently in new PEI fiction anthology

Two UPEI professors, Malcolm Murray (Philosophy) and Alan Harrington (English) appear in the first anthology of contemporary short fiction by PEI authors: Riptides: New Island Fiction, along with staff member Orysia Dawydiak (Department of Biomedical Sciences) and former Psychology professor Fiona Papps. Another half-dozen authors are UPEI graduates. The anthology was edited by Richard Lemm (English), and includes an introductory essay on the development of PEI fiction.

Acorn Press, the Island's major publisher, will launch the anthology which includes twenty-three stories by twenty-three writers, some of whom have established reputations as fiction authors, and others who have emerged more recently as talented writers. The launch will take place on Wednesday, July 18, at 7:00 pm at The Guild on Queen Street in Charlottetown.

Readers will discover a rich variety of settings, characters, situations, and crises in Riptides-from a woman returning to Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster to a married couple playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek in rural Nova Scotia. One young woman hankers to free herself from her life in Alberton, while another arrives on an outback sheep ranch, and an older man travels on the Enlightenment Tour bus to meet Canadian gurus.

Riptides introduces and features Island fiction writers of the 21st century, a hundred years after another fiction writer made PEI the Land of Anne and Emily. With Riptides, we're not in Avonlea anymore.