The best contemporary North American short story collections that find the beauty in hard-ass, hard-luck cases

Shepherd.com, a new site (celebrating its first birthday) featuring authors sharing their favorite books, asked me to write about five of my favourite single-author short-story collections. Their MO is, “We want to create an experience like wandering around your favorite bookstore but reimagined for the online world.”

Looking back over some of my favourite short stories of recent years, I realized I have a certain proclivity for stories that (like my own) feature hard-headed, hard-luck characters made interesting mostly through their stubbornness.  

Click here to take a look at the five books I chose, and why.