From friendship to passion, from childhood to motherhood, from secrets to jealousies, the stories in this collection cover a vast social, cultural and emotional terrain while revealing the many common touchstones in the lives of contemporary women.

Master short story writer and novelist Lisa Moore brings her talents to The Penguin Book of Contemporary Canadian Women's Short Stories, spanning the last two decades of the twentieth century to the present. An enthralling and irresistible collection of twenty-two established writers and talented new voices who attest to the richness and continued popularity of the short story. The authors featured include Margaret Atwood, Bonnie Burnard, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Carol Shields, among others.

Master short story writer and novelist Lisa Moore brings her talents to The Penguin Book of Contemporary Canadian Women's Short Stories, spanning the last two decades of the twentieth century to the present. An enthralling and irresistible collection of twenty-two established writers and talented new voices who attest to the richness and continued popularity of the short story. The authors featured include Margaret Atwood, Bonnie Burnard, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Carol Shields, among others.

An enthralling and irresistible collection of twenty-two established writers and talented new voices who attest to the richness and continued popularity of the short story.

This stunning collection of 60 stories--over a century's worth of the best Canadian literature by an extraordinary array of our finest writers--has been selected and is introduced by award-winning writer Jane Urquhart. Urquhart's selection includes stories by major literary figures such as Mavis Gallant, Carol Shields, Alistair MacLeod, and Margaret Atwood, and wonderful stories by younger writers, including Dennis Bock, Joseph Boyden, and Madeleine Thien. This collection is uniquely organized into five parts: the immigrant experience, urban life, family drama, fantasy and metaphor, and celebrating the past.

Stories by: Kathy Acker, Isabel Allende, Laila Baalabaki, Simone de Beauvoir, Svetlana Boym, Angela Carter, Kate Chopin, Colette, Elizabeth Cook, Candas Jane Dorsey, Carol Emshwiller, L.A. Hall, Radclyffe Hall, Bessie Head, Siv Holm, Evelyn Lau, La Marquise de Mannoury d'Ectot, Katherine Mansfield, Ann Oakley, Iva Pekárková, Claire Rabe, Alifa Rifaat, Joanna Russ, May Sinclair, Verena Stefan, Gertrude Stein, Nicole Ward Jouve, Anna- Elisabeth Weirauch, Edith Wharton, Amy Yamada. Tales of forbidden lust, illicit desires, the twin hungers of loneliness and lust and the complexities of intimacy: all are explored in this fascinating anthology of stories on erotic themes. Spanning the last hundred years The Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women brings together tales that capture the sexual mores of their ages. This is an anthology that acknowledges and confirms a woman's right to shape and define her own sexuality, rather than having it forced on her by men.