This short story related to The Cats of Tanglewood Forest features Lillian at 17 years old. Her discovery of a long-lost paint box in the forest, her love of making art, her very first kiss, and the draw of a magical world all combine in this bittersweet tale about having to make a difficult choice.

First published in The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (Viking, 2002).

Nina and her cousin Ash don’t get along, but now have to share a room. Plagued by nightly dreams about becoming an animal, Nina fears that Ash, who dabbles in the occult, is responsible. More terrifying still, the nightmares start to invade Nina’s waking hours. But an ancient evil has marked one of them, and if either is going to survive they’ll have to stand united against the greater threat.

In Jilly’s journey from being the junkie street kid she was, to the cheerful character we know from later Newford tales, she navigates the perils of loyalty to old friends versus new ones. Facing hard choices, Jilly must decide whether she's worthy of genuine friendship, promises, and life itself.

Cat Midhir lives in a land of dreams, crossing nightly over the borders of sleep into a magic realm. A land where gnomes hide among standing stones and shelties dwell beneath the waves, where the harper Kothlen tells tales of the ancient days and the antlered Mynfel walks by moonlight…

When Cat wakes she weaves stories around the Otherworld. Her books are labelled as fantasy, but Mynfel's domain deems more real to her than the humdrum streets of the city.

Until a thief comes stalking—and steals Cat's dreams away…

Svaha means "the time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder—a waiting for promises to be fulfilled."

In 2094, protective technology shields Native Enclaves from an outer world devastated by pollution and corruption. Beyond those Enclaves, in the ruins between cities, a Native flyer has been downed and a chip encoded with vital secrets is missing. It's up to Gahzee to leave the Enclave and dare the deadlands to find it—walking the line between Dreamtime and Realtime, bringing his people's ancient magic and new science to bear on the poisoned world of tomorrow. Bringing hope, perhaps, for a new dawn…

Cover art by Donna Gordon.

Not far from the city there is an ancient wood, forgotten by the modern world, where Mystery walks in the moonlight. He wears the shape of a stag, or a goat, or a horned man wearing a cloak of leaves. He is summoned by the music of the pipes or a fire of bones on Midsummer's Evening. He is chased by the hunt and shadowed by the wild girl.

Greenmantle is not only a gripping thriller but also an introduction to the most profound philosophical issues in literature what stories are for and how they create us. …de Lint shows an awareness of what he's doing that makes his fiction not just a damn fine read but also a clear map of the road that fantasy follows through the human mind. …with Greenmantle, he shows that, far from being mere escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time.

Marshall Coe's shiftless, troubled life has led to tragedy. In this riveting novella, he's suddenly given the chance to go back in time and fix his one big mistake, but Marshall finds that altering history has unexpected consequences. Caught between worlds alongside a young woman with an equally difficult past, they discover that sometimes things happen for a reason.

"Riding Shotgun" was first published in Flights, edited by Al Sarrantonio (Roc Books, 2003). Copyright © 2003 by Charles de Lint.

Charles de Lint's readers have been asking him to put together story collections featuring their favourite Newford characters. The crow girls are among his best-loved characters, so de Lint obliged by gathering their stories all under one roof, so to speak. Some other members of the Newford repertory company show up here, but at the forefront of each story are these two little wild girls with their big personalities.

These stories have all been published before. "Crow Girls" is also available in The Very Best of Charles de Lint and in Moonlight and Vines; "Twa Corbies" in Moonlight and Vines; "The Buffalo Man" in Tapping the Dream Tree; and "A Crow Girls' Christmas" in Muse and Reverie. "Make a Joyful Noise," published in a limited edition by Subterranean Press, has not appeared in any of my previous collections.

Cover art by Tara Larsen Chang.

eBook			Trade Paper

This gripping novella set in Newford is a cautionary tale about Brenda Perry, who bears deep scars from the loss of her father. Poor body image and low self-esteem lead to the resurgence of Brenda's eating disorder and a collapse in the structure of her life. Ghosts, water spirits and wraiths all appear in this tale where there are no easy answers—only opportunities to live and fight another day.

"The Wishing Well" was first published by Axolotl Press, 1993. Copyright © 1993 by Charles de Lint.

Cover art by Kel Flowers.

Its opening sentence, "Every time it rains a ghost comes walking," is the perfect start to this beautiful, bittersweet story about the hesitant first steps of a relationship. Featuring Newford fiddler Geordie Riddell, it's a gentle story of love, loss and the bonds of friendship.

First published in Post Mortem edited by Paul F.Olson and David B. Silva, 1989.

Timeskip is where Newford began: "Newford was not planned out in advance. It started (unbeknownst to me) with "Timeskip," a short story that I wrote for an anthology. I wanted to set the story somewhere other than the Ottawa area where most of my stories had taken place, but I didn't feel comfortable writing about a city that I couldn't physically visit. So I decided to use various aspects of large urban centers that I had visited, and create a fictitious setting."
—Charles de Lint, from an interview with FairyRoom.com

Set in Newford and featuring musician Geordie Riddell, this novella about a homeless man called Paperjack is classic de Lint—a poignant, mysterious tale about love, loss and learning how to move on. A finalist for the World Fantasy Award, Paperjack is a standalone story, but picks up some of the threads of a previous tale called "Timeskip."

First published in a limited edition of 137 copies by Cheap Street Press, 1991.

When the restrictions and strife of her home life finally become too much, Lesli Betterberry runs away from home. But the freedom she hopes to find on the street is an illusion and she soon finds herself in far worse circumstances. Featured in this story are otherworldly musicians Cerin and Meran Kelledy, who must use their gifts of music and magic to try to find the girl.

First published as a limited edition chapbook, 1990.