Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Sleepwalking
    Sleepwalking
    Sleepwalking
    Ebook29 pages19 minutes

    Sleepwalking

    By Priscila Uppal

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This short story is taken from the collection Cover Before Striking. The most common phrase in print is “cover before striking,” a warning to those about to innocently strike a match to be careful not to burn their fingers. Uppal’s characters in Cover Before Striking are all people pushing their lives to new levels of intensity, danger, or passion as they test their limits and those of the world. Implacable and just a little unhinged, the stories of Cover Before Striking each move toward that moment of contact when the sparks begin to fly, when destruction and beauty seem to blur together. With this collection, Priscila Uppal offers the literary equivalent of playing with fire.

    “Sleepwalking” was originally published in Exile and was nominated for the Journey Prize.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateJul 4, 2015
    ISBN9781459732681
    Sleepwalking
    Author

    Priscila Uppal

    Priscila Uppal was an internationally acclaimed poet, prose writer, and playwright. A York University professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she was the author of Ontological Necessities and Cover Before Striking. Her memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and a Governor General’s Award.

    Read more from Priscila Uppal

    Related to Sleepwalking

    Related ebooks

    Short Stories For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Childhood

      Sep 1, 2021

      A Symposium on Childhood
      25 min read

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Intelligent Creatures

      Jul 6, 2023

      Intelligent Creatures
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Arrangements: Coming of Age with Books

      Jun 26, 2018

      1.  “How many of you still play with dolls?” Depending on our moods: We rolled our eyes; we buried our burning faces in our arms; we groaned; we shrieked; we wished to be elsewhere; we were present. In the exact middle of eighth grade (the season in

      5 min read

    • Article

      There’s No Place Like Home: An Artist Reconnects to the Whispers of Her Past

      Apr 7, 2023

      Estimated reading time: 13 minutes — I would be remiss in telling you how two suburbanites found home at our farm, ‘Oakhaven’, without first sharing our motives. There were a few. We had been watching the steady decline of the small towns we love fo

      8 min read

    • Article

      In Dogs We Trust

      Jan 18, 2022

      In Dogs We Trust
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Silent Call Sensation

      Nov 1, 2019

      The Silent Call Sensation
      11 min read

    • Article

      Towns Like Ours

      May 3, 2018

      Towns Like Ours
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Mairead Small Staid

      Dec 7, 2022

      Mairead Small Staid reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Mairead Small Staid appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      I Never Called Her Momma

      Sep 13, 2023

      I Never Called Her Momma
      39 min read

    • Article

      100-WORD-STORY COMPETITION Winners

      Aug 16, 2022

      We’ve been delighted by the huge response to our 100-word-story competition. The entries have flooded in thick and fast during the past few months, but while we’ve enjoyed reading every story, only a few can come out on top! You, our readers, voted t

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Inventions of Witches

      Oct 30, 2017

      The Inventions of Witches
      7 min read

    • Article

      About A Dog

      Oct 19, 2022

      About A Dog
      2 min read

    • Article

      I’m the One Who Survives: An Excerpt from ‘The Postcard’

      May 15, 2023

      I remember with cruel clarity the day when someone said to me—I was still only little—“Your family died in an oven.” The post I’m the One Who Survives: An Excerpt from ‘The Postcard’ appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2019

      Ayat Jaffar, age 9 Avon, OH Over winter break, I went to Umrah. Umrah is an Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I went with my mom, dad, and older sister. We went around a big black stone and between two big mountains seven times each in mem

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sleepwalking

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Sleepwalking - Priscila Uppal

      Selected Praise for Priscila Uppal’s Works

      Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother

      "Projection proves to be remarkably free of self-pity … [A] raw, passionate memoir, a fierce exercise in family exorcism."

      — Montreal Gazette

      Uppal is brave … made of sterner stuff than most; an inspiration to messed-up adult children everywhere.

      — Globe and Mail

      "[S]uperbly conveyed without any excessive literary artifice … Projection is a book that’s simultaneously cerebral and visceral, and its ardent refusal of any sort of mind-body split — to sacrifice sophistication for sentiment or vice versa — is the sign of an author who has thrown herself wholly into her book."

      — National Post

      Incorporating movie and pop-culture references as storytelling devices is what makes this book truly shine … Above all, Uppal is an impeccable writer, deftly infusing complex scenes and emotions with power and weight … a worthy read.

      — Quill & Quire

      [A] heartbreaking memoir.

      —Toronto Life

      Intimate, sad, probing and self-aware, often very funny logbook of a harrowing encounter.

      — Literary Review of Canada

      To Whom It May Concern

      It is to be hoped that Uppal will continue to rival Atwood in productivity and wit. As Shakespeare might have said: Fortune, smile again on lovers of CanLit; grace us with more irresistible stories from Uppal’s unique perspective.

      — Montreal Gazette

      Uppal is a deep thinker, capable of carefully peeling back layer upon layer of the human psyche … makes us laugh and cry long after the last page of the novel has been read.

      — Ottawa Citizen

      "Uppal’s writing

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1