Toast Soldiers is a evocative short story collection from award-winning poet and author, Bruce Meyer. Stunningly dark and full of beautiful incongruities and absurdities, the stories center on characters grappling with a confounding universe. A boxer returns to his hometown after a decade away and, instead of finding solace from his failures in the ring, arrives in a ghost town that has taken as many, if not more, punches than he has ever had to endure himself. A prospector in the far north crashes his Curtis Jenny biplane in a snowstorm and during the night he witnesses his life unfold in the cinematic glow of the Northern Lights. A child with an imaginary friend murders his abusive father but learns that kindness is just a shadow away. A veteran of World War One attempts to prove, once and for all, that a horrific event he was part of was real despite historians who argue to the contrary. And there are many more. Toast Soldiers tells the stories of individuals who fight against the invincible fates they confront and attempt to assert themselves even though they know they are facing defeat.
Bruce Meyer is author of sixty-seven books of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and non-fiction, including three national bestsellers (The Golden Thread, Portraits of Canadian Writers, and the anthology We Wasn't Pals that he co-edited with Barry Callaghan).
His short stories have won or been shortlisted for numerous international fiction awards including the Tom Gallon Trust Fiction Prize from the Society of Authors in the UK, the Anton Chekhov Prize for Short Fiction (UK), the Retreat West Fiction Prize (UK), the Fish Fiction Prize (IRE), the London International Short Story Prize (UK), the Freefall Fiction Prize (CAN), the Thomas Morton Fiction Prize (CAN), the Carter V. Cooper Prize for Short Fiction (CAN), the Strand International Fiction Prize (IND), and Wingless Dreamer Short Story Prize (USA).
He has been writer-in-residence/visiting writer at the University of Texas at Austin Dobie House, and the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg. He was the inaugural poet laureate of the City of Barrie, Artistic Director of the Leacock Summer Festival of Canadian Literature in Orillia, and founder of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. His radio broadcasts on The Great Books, A Novel Idea, and Great Poetry: Poetry Is Life and Vice Versa, are the CBC's bestselling spoken-word audio series. He is the subject of two books, Bruce Meyer: Inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Barrie (Dr. Juan de Dios Torallbo Cabellero, Spain) and Guernica Editions' Canadian Writer's Series: Bruce Meyer (edited by Benjamin Ghan).
He lives in Barrie, Ontario and teaches at Georgian College and at the University of Toronto. Toast Soldier's is Meyer's 68th book.
