RUNNER UP FOR THE 2013 DANUTA GLEED LITERARY AWARD & WINNER OF THE F.G. BRESSANI PRIZE for SHORT FICTION

Funny, tender and poignant, A Recipe for Disaster is populated by quirky characters who blend desire, imperfect love and comfort food into the sweet and salty mix of daily life while they yearn for the sustenance of human connection. A bemused child witnesses her mother flirt with a police officer responding to a domestic dispute call. A young woman mourns the end of a relationship, recalling the potently toxic recipe that created the disastrous union. A son struggles to accept his father’s emotional frailties and reject his passive approach to loss. A couple finally commits–to breaking up. A recently divorced woman meditates on the source of her ravenous cravings. A woman decides to end the prolonged vow of silence she took with her devout, hyper-critical mother. Six skilful and witty stories that will engage your heart.

JURY COMMENTS: Eufemia Fantetti’s slim volume of stories, A Recipe for Disaster, is more of a treat than a snack for literary foodies who like their stories fun, brisk, and effortless. The theme of food is sustained without dominating the stories; it functions like a recurring secondary character or a soundtrack. Fantetti’s storytelling is both supple and disciplined as if she were whisking plots and characters together until the reader can hardly distinguish whether characters are acting or being acted upon. True to life, that’s how disasters work.

—

PRAISE FOR A RECIPE FOR DISASTER

"A Recipe for Disaster is a delicious treat. With her fresh, intelligent voice and lush prose, Eufemia Fantetti serves up stories that are at once achingly familiar and laugh-­out-loud funny.”
— Ayelet Tsabari,The Best Place on Earth

"A delicious blend of dark humour and edgy insight, Fantetti's stories zero in on the emotional precipices of intimate relationships--mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, couples coming together or falling part. Fantetti has an unflinching eye and irreverent wit that exposes the surreal in the real, as well as a gift for finely honed dialogue that slices right through to the core of family dysfunction. Food becomes an expression not only of love, but of longing, resentment, despair and, ultimately, truth. A memorable debut collection."
— Fiona Tinwei Lam, Intimate Distances, Enter the Chrysanthemum

"In Eufemia Fantetti’s A Recipe for Disaster and Other Unlikely Tales of Love, the humour always arrives by way of characters and relationships that evince a dark and essentially human agony—and, vice versa, the moments of anguish nevertheless have something funny at their edges. Like the sour you crave with the sweet of the sauce, and the pain you love in the heat of the spice, Fantetti’s truths will nourish you with their magnificent mix of contradictions. Whether or not you say grace first, read this book and give thanks for the arrival of this brilliant new literary voice."
— Wayde Compton, Performance Bond

—

A Recipe for Disaster: REVIEWS & EPHEMERA

• An interview on ItaloCanadese by Domenico Capilongo, author of I thought Elvis was Italian, hands down my favourite title and also something I believed as a child.

• A review in The Overcast as part of CanLit Fridays by the multi-talented, clearly-doesn't-need-any-sleep Chad Pelley.

• An interview in The Humber Literary Review. Check out Beverly Cooper too. She was my playwriting classmate and is now a dear friend. Better yet, check it all out. It's a great new literary magazine.

• A review from the Descant Magazine blog by Lesley Kenny, a writer and supremely witty woman. I was in the middle of an ESL Literacy lesson plan meltdown when this review was posted and it made my month.

• A review alongside Eat It: Sex Food & Women's Writing on Pickle Me This, Kerry Clare's fabulous blog (where she writes oodles about books.) Lovely to find myself here, in delicious company!

• A shout out from Ayelet Tsabari (where she also mentions the Next Wonderful Writer You Should Follow - Nancy Jo Cullen - her story collection, Canary, is deservedly getting rave reviews) and a mention by Kathy Friedman in The New Quarterly!

• An interview about writing A Recipe for Disaster and the meaning of life, the intimidating world of gluten free and missing Vancouver (for all the small reasons - the ocean, the mountains, and the big ones - the people) with the tireless book promoter Joseph Planta on his site The Commentary. He calmed my nerves beforehand and is simply excellent to talk with, we kept talking after we were done. Thank you, Joseph!

• A review in The Vancouver Sun (also in The Edmonton Journal) by the marvellous M.A.C. Farrant, whose writing I have long admired. I loved My Turquoise Years, (a memoir) and The Secret Lives of Litterbugs (an essay collection). I woke up as if it was an ordinary day and after checking my email, I felt the need to put on a tiara and dance around my apartment. A frantic search ensued to borrow a tiara, a ball gown and a cup of Champagne. This is what comes of hanging out with writers instead of royals, no one has any crown jewels or formal frocks to lend out, but my stars, they are the best company.

AntHologies

Click on any image below to see publication date (and link to the publisher, where applicable)

Journals & Magazines

• “Not for the Faint-Hearted: Faith and Fiction at the Festival of Literary Diversity, The New Quarterly,” (non-fiction) autumn 2016

• “Blood Wedding,” Humber Literary Review, (non-fiction), issue 3, Vol.2, Winter 2016/17

• “The Anthropology of Fire,” Accenti Magazine, Contest winner 2011, (non-fiction), issue autumn 2012

• “Alphabet Autobiografica,” Event Magazine 38.3 autumn 2009, (Winner of Event Magazine's Creative Non-Fiction contest and named a Notable Essay by the Best American Essay Series) available online at Redux: A Literary Journal, edited by the wonderful Leslie Pietrzyk.

• “Loss of Appetite,” Open Minds Quarterly, summer 2008 (fiction)