Best Canadian Stories 2026

“Combines both emerging and established voices for a fascinating glimpse at the most exciting short fiction coming out of this country.”—Open Book
Selected and introduced by Zsuzsi Gartner, the 2026 edition of Best Canadian Stories provides a distinctive sample of the best Canadian short fiction published over the last year. These sixteen stories draw together an expressive range of characters and narratives, from contributors both familiar and new, and appeal to both longstanding readers and those looking for an entry point into Canadian literature.
Featuring:
Shashi Bhat • Julie Bouchard, translated by Arielle Aaronson • Randy Boyagoda • Grant Buday • Petra Chambers • Sophie Crocker • Bill Gaston • Evan J • Aaron Kreuter • Alex Leslie • Erin MacNair • D.F. McCourt • Rishi Midha • Kaitlin Ruether • Margaret Sweatman

Zsuzsi Gartner is the author of the Giller Prize finalist Better Living through Plastic Explosives and of the widely acclaimed story collection All the Anxious Girls on Earth. Her first novel, The Beguiling, was a finalist for the 2020 Writers Trust Fiction Prize and a Globe and Mail Best Book. Her fiction has been widely anthologized, read on the CBC and NPR and won National Magazine Awards. She was the inaugural Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow for Cork, Ireland in 2016. She edited the award-winning fiction anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow and was the founder and director of Writers Adventure Camp in Whistler, BC. She is currently completing her third short fiction collection. She lives in Vancouver.