Len Gasparini is a master of the dark, hard-edged, densely layered story. In his latest story collection, The Snows of yesteryear, he charts the climate of the human heart with compassion, humor, nostalgia, and irony. His characters are shaped as much by fate as by the hungry ghosts of their own pasts. A desperate publisher dreams up a clever hoax to save his weekly newspaper from going under. Life and art are crucially juxtaposed when a painter sees his ideal model in a young black stripper. A cynical pensioner finds a new purpose in life when his lady friend adopts an ageing Siamese cat. Other stories are comic and nightmarish by turns.

Born in Windsor, Ontario, Len Gasparini is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, five short-story collections, including The Snows of Yesteryear (2011), The Undertaker's Wife (,2007), and A Demon in My View (2003), which was translated into French as Nouvelle noirceur. He has also written two children’s books, a work of non-fiction, and a one-act play. In 1990, he was awarded the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize for poetry. In 2010, he won the NOW Open Poetry Stage event. Having lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New Orleans, and Washington State, he now divides his time between Toronto and his hometown. Mirror Image, his latest collection, combines poetry and prose.

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Provocative ... these stories dig into the human condition and leave a lasting impression. - The Pacific Rim Review of Books

Moving and universal. - The Toronto Star Len Gasparini's The Undertaker's Wife is an elegant collection of short stories that are densely layered and rich enough to function almost as mini-novels. Particularly impressive are Frank and Millie, which charts the cross-currents of desire among three young people in 1960s Ontario, and Montego Bay, a traveller's tale featuring a Canadian tourist adrift on Jamaica's mean streets. -- Tom Sandborn, The Globe & Mail