Frances Itani returns to her roots with a collection of over 20 remarkable short stories. Showcasing the range and depth of her work, these include selections from her previous three collections, as well as seven new stories.

In the award-winning title story, “Poached Egg on Toast,” a small domestic drama balloons into a defining moment in a long-time marriage. “Accident” holds its dream-like spell over the reader as a woman struggles to make sense of what happened to her and her husband in a terrible car wreck. “In the Name of Love” explores a woman’s search for normalcy and connection in the midst of devastation during the 1990s Balkan War.

A number of these stories showcase Itani’s ability to shine a clear light on what it feels like to be an outsider, displaced and disconnected from the world at hand. Others are about family life, the crises we must all face, and how a single, small moment can cause a seismic shift in our emotional landscape. Wickedly funny and unbearably sad, they leave us with a renewed sense of humanity.

Besides her two previous books of poetry (No Other Lodgings, Fiddlehead, 1978 and Rentee Bay, Quarry, 1983), Frances Itani has published a children's book and co-authored a book of short stories. More recently, Frances Itani, a Member of the Order of Canada, had a spectacular international debut with her first novel, Deafening, which received a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean Region) and was shortlisted for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; it was a #1 bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, Remembering The Bones, was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Itani’s short story collection, Poached Egg On Toast, won the 2005 Ottawa Book Award and the 2005 CAA Jubilee Award for Short Stories. Itani lives in Ottawa.

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