A Piece of Egg Shell:  An Anthology of Haiku and Related Work by The Magpie Haiku Poets of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, perfect bound, 8 x 5, 84 pages, ISBN: 0-9734761, $10.00 Canadian (plus postage)  Payable by check or money order 

This unique collection contains over 100 haiku and related poems by six Alberta haiku poets.  The contributors, Patricia Benedict, DeVar Dahl, Lesley Dahl, Jean Jorgensen, Tim Sampson and I, call ourselves The Magpie Haiku Poets.  Our name is reflected in the cover image of a magpie in flight, superbly drawn by Calgary artist Ken Richardson.

Why do we admire this much maligned bird?  To its credit, it's highly intelligent, playful and rather beautiful, in a black and white sort of way.  Also magpies are plentiful in Alberta, both in rural and urban settings.  Of course there's mroe to A Piece of Egg Shell than magpies.  The title for, example, comes from one of DeVar's haiku:

easter snow

a piece of egg shell

in the sandwich

Besides the poems, A Piece of Egg Shell features a foreword by Dr. Bruce Ross and an introduction by Tim.  I'm sure I speak for all the Magpie Haiku Poets when I say that creating our first anthology was an invaluable learning experience.  Read Jane Reichhold's review at http://www.ahapoetry.com/ahalynx/210bkrvs.html.

Double Whammy:  55 Word Stories by Joanne Morcom, Capricorn Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, saddle stitched, 8 x 5, 27 pages, ISBN 0-9693564-1-2, $5.00 Canadian (plus postage)  Payable by check or money order

The 25 stories in this collection are extremely short, even by flash fiction standards. Why are they all 55 words long?  One reason is that my first effort, "The Storyteller", won first place in a 55 word crime story contest sponsored by Suite 101.com in October 2002.  I thought I must be doing something right, and decided to carry on.  I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of writing a complete story with very few words, and that contains a twist or surprise ending.  Besides their word count, they have something else in common.  They explore the dark side, with a touch of humor.  What better subject matter for a story that's meant to be read in seconds, but reflected upon for much longer?

A Nameless Place by Joanne Morcom, Sam's Dot Publishing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, saddle stitched, 8 x 5, 20 pages, $4.00 U.S. (plus postage) www.genremall.com  or $5.00 Canadian (plus postage) from the author.  Between Kisses, the Sam's Dot Publishing Newsletter, Volume V, Number 4, December 2006, describes this chapbook as "something of an odyssey in scifaiku and haibun, presented with Morcom's customary pith and panache."  According to The Genre Mall, A Nameless Place is one of their top ten bestsellers.  Yeehaw! as we say here in Cowtown (Calgary.)

faraway planet

reptilians wear

human-skin boots

Intrigued?  Buy the book to read more scifaiku and shadowku.  And remember what Franz Kafka said: "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."