Dave Margoshes explores uncharted territory of the human heart in this thoroughly engaging new collection of short stories. Like a small boy fascinated with bugs and frogs, Margoshes, a journeyman story-writer, holds his characters up to the light and lets them squirm. By and large, these people are content with their ordinary, somewhat humdrum lives, until they are shaken by unexpected stress:

A woman learns her likeable step-father was a secret pornographer; an overheard boast of infidelity sends a marriage and a life into freefall; a middle-aged musician, satisfied with his place in the orchestra's second violin section, begins to re-examine his life when he discovers a long-buried family secret; winning a contest tests a friendship in an unexpected way; a surprise visit tilts an budding love affair over the edge; a teenaged girl finally comes to terms with grief when she swims in a lake named for her father.

Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories offers surprising glimpses into people's lives, challenging us to observe the world, and life around us, a little closer.

Dave Margoshes has published more than a dozen books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. His collection of stories, Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories, was Saskatchewan Book of the Year, won the Regina Book Award and was a finalist in the ReLit Awards in 2007. His three novels are Drowning Man, I Am Frankie Stern, and We Who Seek: A Love Story. He has published four other story collections, five volumes of poetry and several non-fiction works, including a biography of Tommy Douglas.
He has had stories and poems published in dozens of magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States (including six times in Best Canadian Stories), had work broadcast on CBC, and given readings across the country. His awards include the Stephen Leacock Prize for Poetry. He was also a finalist for the Journey Prize.
Some of his stories and poems spring from his days as an itinerant journalist. Margoshes worked for daily newspapers in eight cities, including San Francisco, New York, Calgary and Vancouver, covering everything from politics to murder to cat shows. He's also taught journalism. He currently lives near Saskatoon.

Dave Margoshes' profile page