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Spend enough time reading the dictionary and you might begin to notice a strange phenomenon: thousands of oddly conspicuous italicized sentences, all of which read like tiny pieces of fiction that got lost and wandered into the wrong book. Dictionary Stories: Short Fictions and Other Findings<\/em> is a collection of very short stories, each composed entirely of these curious excerpts, otherwise known as example sentences. <\/p>\n In Kolaj<\/em> #22<\/a>, Katharine Coldiron wrote about Dictionary Stories<\/em>:<\/p>\n PURCHASE KOLAJ #22<\/a><\/p>\n ABOUT THE BOOK<\/strong>\n
The premise of Jez Burrows\u2019s first book, Dictionary Stories<\/em>, is a piquant one: use the sample sentences in the dictionary (actually, multiple dictionaries) to build microfiction that pleases and provokes. Primarily a graphic designer, Burrows is participating in literary collage, which plays by some of the same rules as visual collage. Almost everything in the book comes from a context previously created by someone else, and it is remixed and recontextualized at the author\u2019s whim to make a different kind of sense.<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\nDictionary Stories<\/em>
\nby Jez Burrows
\n7.125″x4.5″, 256 pages
\npaperback, illustrated
\nISBN: 978-0-0626-5261-4
\n$21 Canada and $16.99 US
\nHarper Perennial<\/a>, New York, New York, 2018<\/p>\n