Cynthia Flood's The English Stories (Biblioasis 2009) is a suite of short fictions set in 1950s England. At a girls' school and in a residential hotel, various narrators depict colonialism's weakening and its strong residual hold on English, Canadian, and Irish characters. It was followed by a collection focussing again on the lives of women, Red Girl Rat Boy (Biblioasis 2013), which was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes' fiction award and long-listed for the Frank O'Connor award besides appearing on "best of year" lists for Quill & Quire and January Magazine.

Flood's earlier story collections are The Animals In Their Elements and My Father Took A Cake To France (Talonbooks 1987 and 1992). A novel, Making A Stone Of The Heart, appeared from Key Porter in 2002.

Her short fiction has won The Journey Prize, a National Magazine Gold Award, a Western Magazines award, and a Prism International award. Her novel was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Prize in 2002.

What Can You Do: Stories (Biblioasis 2017) is a collection of 12 short stories featuring couples negotiating new terms for connection, travelers revealing old habits in new landscapes, lonely political lefties wondering why they just can't win, and child-truths colliding with what the grown-ups - for selfish reasons - 'want' to be the facts.

Cynthia Flood was born in Toronto in 1940. She was raised in Toronto and came to British Columbia in 1969 ("one of my best life decisions"). She has been involved in the women's movement, left-wing organizations, the anti-war movement, environmental projects and writers' groups. For many years she taught literature and composition at Langara College, where she was also involved with union activity and women's studies.

BOOKS:

What Can You Do (Biblioasis 2017) $19.95 978-1-77196-176-9
Red Girl Rat Boy (Biblioasis, 2013) short stories 978-1-927428-41-2, 18.95.
The English Stories (Biblioasis, 2009) -- short stories
Making a Stone of the Heart, novel (Key Porter, 2002)
My Father Took a Cake to France, short stories (Talonbooks, 1992)
The Animals in their Elements, short stories (Talonbooks, 1987)
You Are Here: Selected Stories (Biblioasis, 2022) $26.95 9781771963411

AWARDS:

The Journey Prize, National Magazine Gold Award, Western Magazine Fiction Award, Prism International Fiction Prize (2nd). Nominated for City of Vancouver Book Award and the Ethel Wilson prize for fiction.

[BCBW 2023] "Fiction" "Women"