Flying to Yellow

by Linda Holeman

The short stories that make up Flying to Yellow recreate the small, yet huge world of family relationships-- the nuances, the silences, the subtle exchanges between people together for the reasons that make a family- blood ties, love, necessity. They embody the unvoiced emotions that we experience as children, siblings, parents, and lovers-- the thin web of relationships which bind us together.

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Linda Holeman is the author of fourteen books of fiction. Her work includes two adult collections of literary short stories, Flying to Yellow and Devil’s Darning Needle, as well as the historic novels The Linnet Bird, The Moonlit Cage, In a Far Country, The Saffron Gate, The Lost Souls of Angelkov, and The Devil on Her Tongue. Her young adult body of work consists of a collection of short stories, Saying Good-Bye, which was re-released as Toxic Love, and four novels: Promise Song, Mercy’s Birds, Raspberry House Blues, and Search of the Moon King’s Daughter. She has also written a first-chapter book, Frankie on the Run, illustrated by Heather Collins. To date, Linda’s work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Greek, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Hungarian, soon to be published in Croatian, Italian, Czech and Slovakian.

As well as being published in many journals and periodicals, her work has been widely anthologized in Canada – most noticeably in The Journey Prize Anthology – and abroad. Linda has also acted as guest editor for a young adult issue of Prairie Fire Magazine, for which was she awarded the Vicky Metcalf Short Story Editor Award. She has been the recipient of many honours and awards for her young adult work.

Linda has been a member of the Manitoba Artists in the Schools Program and CANSCAIP, toured with the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, acted as a mentor in the Manitoba Writers’ Guild Mentor Program, taught creative writing through the University of Winnipeg’s Continuing Education, served on many juries, including the Governor-General’s Award for Children’s Literature, and created and facilitated numerous writing workshops on many aspects of the writing process to both students and adults nationally and internationally. She held a nine-month term as Writer-in-Residence at the Millennium Library in Winnipeg, and served on the editorial advisory board for Turnstone Press and on the board of the Manitoba Writers Guild. She is a member of The Writers Union of Canada.

Linda holds a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Winnipeg, a BEd in Early Childhood Education and MEd in Educational Psychology from the University of Manitoba.

She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Source: http://www.lindaholeman.com/

Reviews

[Alison Lohans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this very fine short story collection hot off the press in 1996, directly from author Linda Holeman. After devouring half of it right away, life "got in the way" and so it sat on my shelf, bookmark in place, for over 20 years (I'm ashamed to admit).
Holeman's vivid writing brings so many different characters' lives into full-blown immediacy -individuals in unique, meticulously-crafted circumstances. Of the seven short stories I read yesterday, "Lilyrose", "Absolution", "Questions to Ask a Turtle" and "Sighs for Lila" all hit hard, giving lots to ponder over.
A terrific read!

[Debbie Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How about post-matriarchal depression? Like postpartum. Get it? The new-baby blues, the dead-mother blues." (p. 134)

Linda Holeman's 168-page short story collection "Flying to Yellow", may throw a few unexpected punches but overall it fills the reader's heart with a variety of familial characters and situations. Tales about relationships, pregnancies, deception, alcoholism, single parenting, loneliness, death, mourning and more.

I enjoyed her character descriptions: "Myrna is true prairie stock - a stubborn, prickly perennial, regularly snowed under by life's woes, but always returning" (p. 3) and "Clare swings her head back and forth, back and forth , a shaggy blonde pendulum" (p. 28) Her use of sound is also noteworthy: "the purr and click of the concrete under the Volvo's wheels as they sped towards home. " (p. 79) and "A burst of rain, loud as a handful of gravel, hits the window." (p. 130)

Because I wasn't familiar with this author's prolific work, this 1996 collection of 14 stories provided me with an excellent introduction to her writing style. I look forward to reading more of her work.