Editing Alistair MacLeod (section)

==Published works and methods==
MacLeod published only one novel and fewer than 20 short stories during his lifetime. Writing in longhand, he worked slowly refining his sentences until he found what he felt were just the right words.<ref name="Medley" /><ref name="Baer" /> "I write a single sentence at a time," he once told an interviewer, "and then I read it aloud."<ref name="Baer" />

{| class="toccolours" style="float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; font-size: 110%; background:#ddeeff; color:black; width:23em; max-width: 25%;" cellspacing="5"
| style="text-align: left;" |
''I think we should realize that "story" is much older than literacy, you know, and that all kinds of people tell stories who can't read and write. But I think that as a writer...I like to give the impression that I am telling the story rather than writing the story.''
|-
| style="text-align: left;" | <small> – Alistair MacLeod <ref>Robert Jarovi. "An Interview with Alistair MacLeod," ''The Scots Canadian'', Vol 5, February 2002.</ref></small>
|}
 
Fellow Cape Breton writer [[Frank Macdonald (writer)|Frank Macdonald]] described MacLeod as a perfectionist. "He wouldn't set a story free," Macdonald said, "until he was convinced that it was ready." He added that MacLeod never rewrote a story. "He wrote a sentence, and then waited, then wrote another sentence."<ref name="Herald">Tom Ayers. "He always found the right word," ''The Chronicle-Herald'', April 21, 2014, p.A1.</ref> During a CBC Radio interview in 2011, MacLeod spoke about how he shaped his work. He explained that halfway through a story, he would write the final sentence. "I think of that as the last thing I'm going to say to the reader," he said. "I write it down and it serves as a lighthouse on the rest of my journey through the story."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/books/2011/09/alistair-macleod-discusses-the-art-of-writing-slow.html|title=Alistair MacLeod discusses the art of writing slow|publisher=CBC Radio Cape Breton|access-date=2014-04-21}}</ref>

MacLeod's published works include the 1976 short story collection ''The Lost Salt Gift of Blood'' and the 1986 ''As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories''.<ref name=canenc/> The 14 stories in these two volumes appear in ''[[Island (short story collection)|Island: The Collected Short Stories of Alistair MacLeod]]''.<ref name=canenc/> The book, which also contains two new stories, was released in 2000 the year after the publication of his successful first novel ''No Great Mischief''.<ref name=canenc/><ref name="Medley" /> When asked why, as a master short story writer, he had suddenly turned to the novel, MacLeod smiled and replied: "Well, nothing I do is very sudden. I think I just wanted more space. I needed a bus rather than a Volkswagen to put my people in."<ref>Elaine Kalman Naves. "Writing on the side: For Alistair MacLeod life comes first, fiction second." ''The Gazette'', December 4, 1999, p.J3.</ref>

In 2004 MacLeod published an illustrated edition of his story, "To Everything There Is a Season" with the new heading of: "A Cape Breton Christmas Story".<ref name=canenc/>

In October 2012, ''Remembrance'', a story commissioned by the Vancouver Writers Fest to mark its 25 anniversary, was published and sold there as a chapbook.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/remembrance|title=Remembrance|publisher=The Vancouver Writers Fest|access-date=2014-04-21|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140409121358/https://www.writersfest.bc.ca/multimedia/remembrance|archive-date=2014-04-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/how-alistair-macleod-delivered-a-custom-made-short-story-for-the-vancouver-writers-fest/article4614013/|title=How Alistair MacLeod delivered a custom-made short story for the Vancouver Writers Fest|author=Marsha Lederman|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|access-date=2014-04-23}}</ref>

MacLeod's books have been translated into 17 languages.<ref name="obituary" />