This rich volume begins with a very good-humoured memoir, "Alice Munro: Not Bad Short Story Writer"; by Munro's renowned Canadian publisher, Douglas Gibson, followed by powerful autobiographical pieces by fiction writer Jack Hodgins, playwright Judith Thompson, poet John B. Lee, poet-playwright-teacher James Reaney, and local historian Reg Thompson. Overall, the twenty contributions to
Alice Munro Country
, including a previously unpublished interview with Munro by J.R. (Tim) Struthers and a superb essay by George Elliott Clarke on Munro's
Lives of Girls and Women
, take a cultural or historical or personal approach, while also providing judicious readings of the subtle literary dimensions of key Munro works.