Off the Record - by John Metcalf (Paperback)

About the Book

"A collection of stories and essays gathered by literary critic, writer, and editor John Metcalf. Featuring six Canadian fiction writers, among them the winners of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, The Butler Book Prize, and the Marian Engel Award, these collected works offer an in-depth look at the processes and inspiration behind their stories."--

Book Synopsis

Editor John Metcalf has inspired, challenged, and championed countless writers over his long career. In Off the Record, he encourages six to reveal what one rarely discusses in polite society: how they became writers instead of radio announcers or cabinet makers. The essays collected here, each accompanied by a short story, offer fascinating insight into the relationships between writers, their editors, and their fiction.

Off the Record brings together work by six noted Canadian writers, among them the winners of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Butler Book Prize, and the Marian Engel Award: Caroline Adderson, Kristyn Dunnion, Cynthia Flood, Shaena Lambert, Elise Levine, and Kathy Page. Their essays are candid, moving, and surprisingly relatable-providing plenty of inspiration for those among us who want to write.

Review Quotes

Praise for Off the Record

"A dazzling collection of memoir and fiction."
-Robert Wiersema, Toronto Star

"[Metcalf's] appreciation for the challenges of being a published writer is reflected in the clever approach he takes in Off the Record . . . The authors in Off the Record chart the course of their careers with stories of rejection, bad publishing decisions, punishing reviews, eventual triumph, and formative experiences. Which is the best kind of education for any wannabe writer--and a reminder for readers of the commitment involved in creating the fiction they get to enjoy."
--Sarah Hampson, Literary Review of Canada

"John Metcalf deserves a round of applause for bringing together such an excellent variety of voices on the subject of being a writer."
--Dave Williamson, Winnipeg Free Press

"Metcalf challenges six decorated Canadian authors to consider and share just how they became writers. Each essay is accompanied by a short story, showcasing each writer's literary identity and style, and providing insight into how each writer approaches their work and their editorial relationships."
--Open Book

"If you write--or even just think you'd like to write--you can't go wrong with adding this anthology to the stack on your nightstand."
--Miramichi Reader

"Carefully wrought, tonally diverse, artful, thoughtful, revelatory, and nothing short of enticing..."
--Brett Josef Grubisic, The BC Review

"The authors' reflections illustrate the complex interplay between craft and intuition that goes into writing fiction ... and provide revealing case studies of how stories move from inspiration to published product. Aspiring writers will be enlightened."
--Publisher's Weekly

Praise for John Metcalf

"[Metcalf's] talent is generous, hectoring, huge, and remarkable."
--Washington Post

"[Metcalf's] exacting eye and his ongoing willingness to call out what he considers substandard, inert, or deadening in our literary culture has earned him opprobrium ... One need not agree with everything [he] says to find much to gnaw on in his analyses of the various ways literary technique and style ... are too often downgraded or outright ignored. ... While it's amusing to wrestle with the temerity and gall of Metcalf's settled esthetic standards ... his achievement in translating this approach into practice as mentor and guiding light is invaluable and we are all in his debt."
--Steven W. Beattie, Toronto Star

"[Metcalf] deliver[s] a layered and textured narrative highlighting a wide range of writing and writers, one that immerses the reader into the soul of what writing, and thus literature, is supposed to be. And in this, he has succeeded."
--Ottawa Review of Books

"Hilarious, touching and delightful ... brilliant concision and understated humor."
--Los Angeles Times

"John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in this country."
--Alice Munro

"In the past few decades, Canada has won a reputation as a prolific producer of high-quality short stories. Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant and John Metcalf are among those who have proven themselves masters of the difficult form."
--Maclean's

"A master stylist confidently at work in his favoured form."
--Oxford

About the Author

John Metcalf has been one of the leading editors in Canada for more than five decades, editing more than two hundred books over this time, including eighteen volumes of the Best Canadian Stories anthology. He is also the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Finding Again the World: Selected Stories, Vital Signs: Collected Novellas, An Aesthetic Underground: A Literary Memoir, and The Museum at the End of the World. Senior Fiction Editor at Biblioasis, he lives in Ottawa with his wife, Myrna.