Sam Shelstad's Books

The Cobra and the Key

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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The Cobra and the Key is a funny and charming satire of writing advice and the people who give it." —The Paris Review Sam Shelstad's brilliantly funny, slightly unhinged creative writing guide is How Fiction Works by James Wood meets Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. To the untrained eye, Sam Shelstad may look a lot like a Value Village cashier who shares an apartment with his Uncle Herman and has just emerged from a failed relationship with a woman forty years his senior whom he met at his mother’s book club. But Sam is a successful novelist—or will be soon, he’s certain. The manuscript of his debut novel, The Emerald, is currently on the desk of a celebrated indie publisher. While he waits to hear back, he’s hard at work on two ambitious writing projects. The first is the Molly novel, a fictional rendering of Sam’s newly defunct relationship. The second is a guide for aspiring fiction writers like yourself. The two have much to teach one another, and much to teach you. Drawing on examples from the work of greats like George Orwell, Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alice Munro, Kazuo Ishiguro, Clarise Lispector, and Sam Shelstad, The Cobra and the Key takes the novice through aspects of character, detail, plot, style, point of view, dialogue, and meaning. Before long, you’ll be ready to print off your first draft and embark on revisions. Then it’s time to learn some of the tricks of the publishing biz. Having just been threatened with legal action by his soon-to-be publisher for stalking said publisher’s son via Instagram, Sam knows a thing or two about that too. Are you ready to get serious about your writing?

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Page Count

201

Publisher

TouchWood Editions

Published Date

ISBN 10

1990071139

ISBN 13

9781990071133

Citizens of Light

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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Citizens of Light

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

“Sam Shelstad has a funny, lively, engaging, peculiar mind—charming and surprising.” —Sheila Heti, bestselling author of Motherhood and Pure Colour This debut novel set in southern Ontario captures call-centre life, faded tourist attractions, and suburbia with oddball wit and sharp realism. Colleen Weagle works in a call centre and lives in a bungalow with her mother in a quiet Toronto suburb. In her spare time she writes spec scripts for a CBC riding-school drama (her mother’s favourite) and plays an online game set in a resort populated by reindeer. It’s a typical life. Except three months ago Colleen’s husband Leonard—who led a similarly monotonous life—was found in a bog in the middle of the night, a two hours’ drive from home. Dead. With a flatly optimistic belief in the power of routine, Colleen has been soldiering on, trying not to think too hard about all the unknowns surrounding the death. But when a local news photo twigs Colleen’s memory of a mystery attendee at Leonard’s funeral she snaps into action. In the maddening company of her ornery co-worker Patti, she heads to Niagara Falls on a quest to find the truth behind the death. Amid the slot machines and grubby hotels, the pair stumble into the darker underworld of a faded tourist trap. What they find will lead straight to an episode from Colleen’s adolescence she thought she’d put firmly behind her. Bleakly madcap, with deadpan dialogue, Shelstad’s debut novel is a noir anti-thriller reminiscent of Twin Peaks and the work of Ottessa Moshfegh and early Kate Atkinson. He captures call-centre life, ramshackle tourist attractions, and suburbia with wit and sharp realism, and reveals the undercurrents of melancholy and the truly bizarre that can run beneath even the most seemingly mild-mannered lives.

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Page Count

176

Publisher

Brindle & Glass

Published Date

ISBN 10

1990071066

ISBN 13

9781990071065

The Cobra and the Key

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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The Cobra and the Key

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

201

Publisher

TouchWood Editions

Published Date

ISBN 10

1990071139

ISBN 13

9781990071133

Retro 4: Selections from Joyland Magazine

By: Brian Joseph Davis,Sarah Gerard,Ottessa Moshfegh,Mimi Lipson,Sarah Dohrmann,Adam Sol,Heather Sappenfield,Katie Chase,Rachel Khong,Sam Shelstad,Tobias Carroll

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Retro 4: Selections from Joyland Magazine

By: Brian Joseph Davis,Sarah Gerard,Ottessa Moshfegh,Mimi Lipson,Sarah Dohrmann,Adam Sol,Heather Sappenfield,Katie Chase,Rachel Khong,Sam Shelstad,Tobias Carroll

Retro 4 is the latest collection of the best, the funniest, the strangest, and the most affecting stories from the award winning literary magazine, Joyland.

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Page Count

123

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1312240962

ISBN 13

9781312240964

Citizens of Light

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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Citizens of Light

A Novel

By: Sam Shelstad

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Page Count

176

Publisher

Brindle & Glass

Published Date

ISBN 10

1990071066

ISBN 13

9781990071065

Cop House

By: Sam Shelstad

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Cop House

By: Sam Shelstad

Cop House is a short story collection about people desperately trying to recapture--or replace--the things they've lost. There are secret vacations, library book fetishes, women who participate in "fully-clothed, free-form touching and explorative play experiences" in exchange for protection from teenage vandals, and a doomsday cult operating out of an aquatic centre. An exiled polar bear spies on his old community and fights to survive in unfamiliar territory. A man campaigns to keep the sitcom Friends on the air after the collapse of his family. A masochistic deer wants to feel something other than the slow digestion of cud: "The thing I really fantasize about is that one night a driver will stop and reverse slowly over my tail. And then maybe they get out, and slam one of my legs in the car door. Oh god. Maybe they tie me up like they're going to mount me on the roof rack, but instead they just douse me in windshield washerfluid." Infused with dark humour, each of the sixteen stories included in the collection explores the absurdity of life when the things that really matter are placed just out of reach. Cop House is a book about the lengths people will go to undo the things that can't be undone.

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Page Count

174

Publisher

Harbour Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0889711275

ISBN 13

9780889711273

Cop House

By: Sam Shelstad

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Cop House

By: Sam Shelstad

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

174

Publisher

Harbour Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0889711275

ISBN 13

9780889711273

Book's by Sam Shelstad

The Cobra and the Key

The Cobra and the Key

Citizens of Light

Citizens of Light

The Cobra and the Key

The Cobra and the Key

Retro 4: Selections from Joyland Magazine

Retro 4: Selections from Joyland Magazine

Citizens of Light

Citizens of Light

Cop House

Cop House

Cop House

Cop House

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