Penelope Douglas is an ex-forensic psychiatrist looking for a fresh start in a western boomtown grown three sizes too crazy. But then a television writer offs himself in her sleek bathroom and her oil-wife friend pronounces Penelope her baby's godmother. Will she be able to find heart in this wild and soulless landscape? Will she have to smudge her lipstick to "cowboy up"? Drama, a new play by the master of edgy dark humour, has all the answers.

It is Katie MacLeod's fifty-fifth birthday. While her daughters throw her a celebratory brunch, Katie takes stock of her life and her loves. Will she take a chance on her internet penpal, Francois, and embrace this virtual romance? In gentle prose, Louise Desjardins continues her observations of human relationships. In the small town of Arntfield, where the narrator spent her childhood, we join her as she recalls the mythical Look-Out Country Club, the site of past sins where her father played the violin, and the MacLeod Music Store.

Louise Desjardins is the author of several collections of poetry. Her first novel, La Love, was awarded the Grand Prix du Journal de Montreal and the Prix des Arcades de Bologne. Desjardins is also the author of Darling, the biography Pauline Julien: La vie mort, and a collection of essays, Coeurs braiss.

"Foreplay", a black comedy in three acts, explores the relationship of an economically well off but emotionally insecure couple. They take an off-season holiday on a New Age refuge island, supposedly to improve their sex lives. "My Italian Wife" is a lighthearted, at times tongue-in-cheek, description of the mindset and preoccupations of second generation Italian immigrants. There is self-mocking wit, flashy dialogue and multilevel insight into the problems confronting the characters. You don't have to be Italian to recognize yourself in them.

Mary Melfi is a Canadian writer of Italian descent. She is a poet, novelist, and playwright and has written over a dozen books of prose and poetry. She lives in Montreal.

Maggie's father is 'Mr Safety'. He knows the woods of Duchess Creek in Northern Canada like the back of his hand, and he has taught his daughter how to survive, how to find and make a shelter in all weathers, in any conditions. Along with her sister, Jenny, and their mother Irene, they are safe from the outside world. But when an accident at work goes fatally wrong, Irene struggles to look after her daughters alone. Wild, imaginative and unpredictable, she billets the two girls with a family, promising to return once the summer is over and she has earned more money. But the summer turns to winter, which rolls round again and again. When the letters stop, the two sisters realise that they can rely on no one but themselves—but what kind of shelter can two young girls make for themselves?