Unfettered
A Collection of Quirky Short Stories
by Irene Kidd-McCuaig

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Unfettered is a story collection brimming with unfettered imagination. A captain of a ship ferries dead souls from a natural disaster to the Afterlife, but a living passenger throws a wrinkle into his job. A faerie travels to the human realm where she tries to restore a dragon to health, encounters a healer, and embraces her own abilities. A retired woman with an unfaithful husband discovers a unique name in the phonebook, leading to her witnessing a crime, and in the process, finding purpose again. A woman in a wheelchair speculates about the people in her neighbourhood. When she starts using a drone to spy on one particular neighbour, all expectations are upended. And in the title story, a girl freely roams the streets at night. On All Hallows Eve, when the veil between worlds is thin, she is faced with a choice. This is a book of the fantastical and mysterious. Voyeurism and deception, adventure and good old-fashioned fun abound. Whether writing about another world, children, or faeries, Irene Kidd-McCuaig never loses sight of her main goal—escapism. But beyond entertainment, almost all the stories in Unfettered present female protagonists coming to terms with the challenging or quirky circumstances they find themselves in.

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Irene Kidd-McCuaig is a retired middle school teacher who runs an art studio in Kenora, Ontario. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English, has attended multiple writing classes, and is part of a Sunday writing group. In 2022, she placed second in the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop International Competition for a flash fiction piece called “It’s in the Stars.” In 2023, she placed second again in the prose category of the NOWW International Competition for the title story of Unfettered. Irene is an artist who has studied painting at workshops in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France. While her dream of being a writer took a back seat for many years, now she revels in creating fantastic worlds. Irene lives in Kenora with her rescue cat, Kokopeli. Find out more about her art and writing at inglenookartstudio.com.

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Contributors

Author

Irene Kidd-McCuaig