Read an Excerpt from SUPERCANUCKS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CANADIAN SMALL-TOWN SUPERHEROES

Superheroes step off the usual urban stage and into smaller, stranger corners of the country in SuperCanucks (Latitude 46 Publishing). This collection leans into familiar comic tropes while reworking them through distinctly Canadian settings, where isolation, weather, and local politics shape what it means to save the day.

The stories unfold in rural communities and overlooked regions, where threats are not always cosmic but no less daunting. Bureaucracy, cross-border tensions, and tight-knit social dynamics become part of the challenge, giving these heroes problems that feel close to home. The tone shifts from playful to pointed, offering a range of takes on power, responsibility, and place. These collected works have been expertly curated by co-editors Matthew D. Del Papa and Andy W. Taylor.

Featuring work by a wide group of contributors, including Premee Mohamed, Pauline Barmby, Dwain Campbell, and many more, the collection highlights diverse voices and approaches. SuperCanucks builds a shared world that is both grounded and inventive, where the extraordinary meets the everyday in unexpected ways.

We've got an excerpt from one of these notable emerging writers to share with our readers, right here on Open Book!

An Excerpt from The Shunt by Premee Mohamed, featured in SuperCanucks: An anthology of Canadian small-town superheroes:

The hallway yawed like a toy boat in a bathtub and Tyson knew that the mistake had been made—his power did not include prophecy and so he could not know his great and particular mistake, which was still in the future; he stopped, buffeted by students running to their next class, with his hand on a locker, buckled over the pain of the mistake making itself known.

No one stopped to speak to him, and in the depths of his distress he felt grateful for that. Maybe this next part would be ignored too. Maybe (he decided with true desperation) he could fix this mistake before it became something really monumental, derided for decades after he graduated. If he lived that long.

He straightened up as far as he could and staggered to the boys’ washroom. Oh Jesus: packed corner to corner. No, one stall free, thank God. He was not a great believer but he incoherently thanked the supplier of this mercy. He ran for it, pushing boys aside (a third, related mistake, he’d realize later) and locked himself in. The familiar stench of incompletely cleaned piss and industrial detergent barely registered as he lowered himself over the filthy bowl, paused, swivelled, reluctance turning into horror, then shut his eyes.

He had seen the mould on the jerky. That was the thing. He had seen and denied it; he had told himself it was a little bit green because of the big green sale sticker on it; he was not some kindergartener squealing because the dirt-cup treats at his birthday party looked too much like real dirt, the gummy worms like real worms. He had eaten three pieces. The final one had a circular smudge on it, pale grey, which had caressed his tongue as he had eaten it. And now he must get rid of it before it finished poisoning him.

Credit Note: Premee Mohamed “The Shunt” from SuperCanucks: An anthology of Canadian small-town superheroes. Copyright © 2026 by The Authors. Use with the permission of Latitude 46 Publishing (www.latitude46publishing.com)

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Matthew D. Del Papa spent every Tuesday of his youth crisscrossing his hometown of Capreol in search of newly arrived comic books. He wore superhero-themed Underoos to a truly worrying age and still has his Batman (and Robin) lunchbox, backpack, and wristwatch. A graduate of Laurentian University, Matthew is a writer, editor, and self-publisher, and has released ten titles to some modest local acclaim. He joined the Sudbury Writers’ Guild in 2009 and his writing has appeared in Spooky Sudbury, Nothing Without Us Too, Mighty, and the forthcoming Sudbury Superstack: A Changing Skyline. His first book, a collection of humorous essays titled Jerry Lewis Told Me I Was Going to Die, was released in 2023 through Latitude 46 Publishing.

Andy W. Taylor grew up as a teen in the 1980s reading Alpha Flight comics and was excited to see Canadian superheroes represented for the first time. Andy was a reader and writer of speculative fiction from an early age thanks in no small part to his mother’s frequent trips to the public library with her kids. He’s a member of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild, a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop and Playwright’s Junction workshop, and a member of CODEX writer’s forum. Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Andy currently lives in Sudbury with his family. His fiction has appeared in On Spec Magazine, FictionVale, Polar Borealis, Sudbury Ink Anthology, and on the streets of Sudbury. He has a new poem and non-fiction piece coming out in 2024 in the anthology Sudbury Superstack: A Changing Skyline.