The Connoisseur: A Short Story

by Victoria Goddard

Arthur MacEachern was a celebrated Canadian writer when he lost his Muse. To success, he thought; it wasn't until a fateful trip to the dentist that he realized his Muse lived somewhere else entirely...

Receiver of an Honourable Mention at the 2018 Prince Edward Island Literary Awards for Short Stories.

13 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 2, 2020

About the author

I walked across England in 2013, fulfilling a long-held dream. I'm currently the sexton of an Anglican church in Nova Scotia, which means I am keeper of the keys and opener of doors (and shutter-off of alarms). I have a PhD in medieval studies from the University of Toronto, looking at poetry and philosophy in the works of Dante and Boethius -- both the poetry and the philosophy come into my stories a great deal (and occasionally the Dante and the Boethius).

I like writing about the ordinary lives of magical people on the other side of the looking glass ... and the extraordinary deeds of ordinary folk, too. Three of my favourite authors are Patricia McKillip (especially 'The Riddle-Master of Hed' trilogy and 'The Bell at Sealy Head'), Connie Willis ('Bellwether' and 'To Say Nothing of the Dog,' which latter would make my top-ten books on a desert island), and Lois McMaster Bujold ('The Curse of Chalion' and its sequels).

Reviews

[rixx · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute, until you start thinking about it – and not written well enough to compensate for that. But not bad, not bad.