Diane Schoemperlen won the Governor General's Award for Fiction with Forms of Devotion, her collection of short stories and pictures. That same distinctive and wonderfully entertaining voice infuses this latest collection, a compendium of 21 stories chosen by Schoemperlen from new, out-of-print and favorite works. " Losing Ground" is a remarkable coming-of-age story; " The Man of My Dreams" pulls us into a place where we too wonder what is real and what is dreamed; and " Forms of Devotion" explores with delicate irony what it means to be faithful in a secular, consumer-driven world. Every one of these pieces shines with Schoemperlen's fresh and often deadpan funny voice, offering a compulsively readable mix of deeply felt emotion and finely wrought intellect. Red Plaid Shirt was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Brewing Company Writers'Craft Award.

"Schoemperlen's inventive language and narrative structures encourage readers to be free 'from the prison of everyday thinking.'"—The New York Times Book ReviewFirst Things First gathers eighteen of the best of Diane Schoemperlen's earliest and uncollected stories, with several being published in book form for the first time. Playfully inventive, comic, moving, and profound, this collection will reinforce Schoemperlen's importance as one of the leading short story writers of her generation.Diane Schoemperlen is the author of twelve books, most recently By the Book: Stories & Pictures.

In a " he said, she said" story, the writer always gets the last word. She is a writer, established and successful, with a full life and supportive friends. Then he walks into a book signing and back into her life 30 years after he broke her heart. This time, things seem different. The pair reconnects through emails, messages and fragments of conversation. But love leaves her with a nasty case of writer's block. Looking for inspiration in the texts around her -- optimistic horoscopes, evasive fortune cookies and the inane suggestions from books on writer's block -- she tries to find a way through the relationship that has seemingly stolen her gift for language. Spinning us through the whirlwind love of her nameless protagonist, award-winning author Diane Schoemperlen weaves a stylish, innovative novel out of to-do lists and text messages. Exploring the different emotional languages spoken by men and women, At A Loss For Words is a charming take on the modern...

From the Governor General's Award winning author of Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found and By the Book"Never once in my life had I dreamed of being in bed with a convicted killer."For almost six turbulent years, award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen was involved with a prison inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen...

Diane Schoemperlen's acclaimed In the Language of Love expanded our expectations of the contemporary novel, using everyday words to deconstruct a young woman's life and loves. In her new short story collection, Forms of Devotion, she again tests the bounds of her craft, creating an arresting and wonderfully readable work that is also a treat for the eye. Forms of Devotion contains eleven stories, each one a brilliant interplay of words and images. The illustrations, selected by Schoemperlen and depicting almost every subject imaginable, are wood engravings and line drawings from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In some cases, she was inspired to write the story after studying the illustrations; in other cases, she wrote the story first, then chose or constructed the pictures to accompany it. The result is a playful, sometimes surreal and often mysterious juxtaposition of a historical fascination with anatomy and classical themes with...

On a Monday morning in April, a middle-aged writer finds a woman standing in front of the fig tree in her living room. The woman is wearing a navy blue trench coat and white Nikes, and is carrying a small black suitcase. She is the Virgin Mary and, she explains, after 2,000 years of petition, adoration and travel, she is in need of some R&R. In Our Lady of the Lost and Found, Diane Schoemperlen has created a profound and original novel that captures the hearts and imagination of readers. Now available with a P.S. section featuring insightful background material, this captivating story is an exploration of our capacity for faith and of the miracles of daily life.

Nominated for a SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, selected by Toronto Star critic Philip Marchand as one of the year's ten best novels, and the recipient of excellent reviews, In the Language of Love is Diane Schoemperlen's innovative and imaginative first novel. Schoemperlen, who won the 1999 Governor General's Award for Fiction for her short story collection Forms of Devotion, is a gifted writer, unafraid to play with literary convention. In the Language of Love is a perfect example, a novel in 100 chapters that uses the 100 stimulus words from the Standard Word Association as a framework. It is the story of Joanna, who has been brought up to believe that if she just does the right thing, happiness will be hers. As she discovers, life and love are determined more by chance than by control. In the Language of Love is a tour de force of deadpan wit and word play, drawing profound insights from the seemingly ordinary...