Across the country since December 1, Canadian readers have been waking up anticipating offerings from the most innovative and excellent advent calendar going. Better than chocolate, better than whiskey, and certainly better than some poorly rendered drug store nativity scene, The Short Story Advent Calendar (#SSAC2015) has infused the Christmas countdown with an amazing literary spirit and readers are thoroughly invested in the project.

"The further into #ssac2015 I get, the more I think an advent calendar is the absolute perfect medium for short stories," tweeted Kelsey Attard (managing editor of Freehand Books) on December 9, which was the day #SSAC-readers cracked open the incredible new story, "Wrestling," by Rosemary Nixon. Other readers chimed in in agreement: "I don't often reach for a short story collection, though that might change by the end of December. Loving this format," wrote Marita Dachsel. JC Sutcliffe tweeted in response, "One a day is actually a perfect way to read them. So much gets lost when you read a collection quickly."

In addition to Rosemary Nixon, these nondenominational literary treats have so included works by authors including Jessica Westhead, Lee Henderson, Naomi K. Lewis, Jason Lee Norman, Heather Birrell, Zsuzsi Gartner, Heather O'Neill, Doretta Lau, Pasha Malla, Eliza Robertson, Spencer Gordon, Nancy-Jo Cullen, and Vivek Shraya. Other contributors are still to be revealed, as each story is individually sealed and not to be opened until the day intended (although some readers [cough, cough, me] have been known to peek inside the cover of the next story the night before in order to learn what the new day has in store).

The whole project was the inspiration of novelist and critic Michael Hingston, who considered the idea last December, pitched it to Kisscut Design's Natalie Olsen in July, and from there the project started coming together. And while Hingston knew he'd be able to find 24 great stories, and that Olsen would able to make each story into a beautiful physical object, the challenge would be getting the word out. Fortunately, the project managed to achieve a lot of media coverage, which helped to spread awareness, and inherent in Hingston's idea was a lot of appeal in the first place—the calendars, which were on sale via the #SSAC2015 website sold out a print run of 1000 copies in just six weeks. 

And since the calendars have found their way into readers' hands, the project has taken on a life of its own on social media. Hingston posts a daily Q&A with his stories' authors, giving context to the work and letter readers know about writers they perhaps hadn't heard of before. And on twitter, readers are connecting with each other via the #SSAC2015 hashtag, sharing their responses and arguing over which story (so far) is the best, and trying to make sense of the stories they don't quite get. (Interestingly, the reports of favourite and least favourite stories are wildly divergent.) Olsen's designs also make for compelling visuals, and so readers are sharing images of the stories. Plus, Edmonton reader Laura Frey is vlogging the whole thing, often over breakfast in the company of her two small sons, who are being turned into minor CanLit celebrities.  

Hingston has been pleased with the response. "I chose and arranged the stories so that they would, ideally, incite a certain type of reaction from readers, and it's been really neat to see how those reactions play out in real time as people read the stories and talk about them. Not everyone will love every single story, of course. It's like one of those big assorted boxes of chocolates: there's always a cherry cordial. But for every story I see a negative or confused reaction to, three other people will say that was their favourite story in the bunch. If each reader walks away with a few new writers they want to get familiar with, that's mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned."

When Christmas is over, Hingston hopes the 2015 Short Story Advent Calendars will go up on shelves to be displayed prominently for years to come. "That's why we didn't make the design too Christmas-y. We just wanted to make the most beautiful object possible."

When asked about plans for a follow-up in 2016, Hingston is oblique, but gives us reason to be hopeful.

"Plans... yes," he reports. "We have some plans."