An eclectic collection of locally crafted short stories are what’s in store if you pick up Cressy Lakeside Books’ first edition of The County Wave this weekend.

The fruits of the local publishing cooperative’s first short story competition offers readers a wide range of styles and story lines that are thought provoking and entertaining and illustrations by local artists.

Authors David Carpenter, Shelagh Mathers and Peter Blendell started Cressy Lakeside Books and, as Blendell tells it, many local authors-both would be and established- piped up when the topic of a published work was broached.

“In the course of running that business and publishing other books we’ve come across people that would say ‘Oh, I have a story’ or ‘I have something I’m working on that should be published’,” Blendell told the Gazette. “We realized there is quite a bit of writing talent here in the county and we thought develop this anthology to showcase how lively this scene is.”

Cressy Lakeside Books put out a call for submissions for short stories and received over 40 from an incredibly varied cross section of authors.

“We managed to select these 21 from it and they range from social realism to fantasy to conventional to experimental. It really covers the water front,” Blendell said.

Among the more notables authors, Ken Murray, Lawrence Scanlon and Carpenter have all been published commercially however there are others making their debut in the pages of The County Wave.

A handful of the writers will read brief samples of their work and talk about the book on Sunday, May 13 at the book’s launch hosted at the Picton Town Hall at 2 Ross St.

The readings get underway at 2 p.m.

Blendell said the book’s title has a dual meaning.

‘First, we are surrounded water and there’s a wave of creativity here but the beginning of the book explains that unique hand gesture Prince Edward County motorists tend to acknowledge one another with,” Blendell said. “It’s a friendly gesture that everyone seems to know and calls it the county wave.”

The publisher added it’s hoped by the coop that this debut anthology will lead to subsequent editions.

“We’d really like to see that happen,” He added. “This is also a chance for us to provide exposure for Lakeside Cressy Books as a publishing group and showcase the high level of writing talent in the county.”