Thin Air: Winnipeg International Writers Festival wrapped up last week, with the festival staff chuffed that half the writers on the Giller Prize long list dropped by.

The festival does a great job introducing emerging writers to the city - people such as Rebecca Rosenblum and Andrew Hood, both of whom have just published their debut collections of stories.

Rebecca Rosenblum's work takes in the important things in life: anxiety, incipient violence, lousy jobs - and Vietnamese food.

"I find it easy to write about things with a taste or smell or texture," she says. "For me, food is up there with sex and violence. It's something everyone can understand.

"I hope people say that the characters seem real to them," she adds. "I'm a character-driven author. I care so much about character."

Her book, Once (Biblioasis), features young adults on the edge of growing up, confronting responsibility and the world. I suggest they're 'cuspy.'

"Is that a word?" she laughs. "It should be.

"In a very sad way," she adds, "that process blindsides some people. There's no reason to grow up until you need to grow up, until there's an element of danger.

"That idea of change, or desire for change or the impossibility of change drives a lot of these characters. That's when emotions are closer to the surface. That's what interests me. It's easier to find a place to write."

Hood's book is called Pardon Our Monsters (Esplanade Books). It's a portrait of small-town life, with frustrated characters spending time with family or friends as tensions bubble underneath.

"In certain ways, I feel like a lot of characters are aimless," Hood says. "They have these relationships that they don't really want but they still have to deal with the consequences.

"In some of the stories, there is love," he adds, "but it's love braided with so much pain and hatred, but self-hatred.

"When you hold so much anger, and anger without catharsis, it becomes too heavy to hold."

Hood is committed to the short story. He says a good collection of stories resembles a great CD, which is more than just a bunch of songs.

"They have an emotional arc to them, like a good album has," he says. "And hopefully, if stories are written more intelligently, they'll be read more intelligently.

"I think what I like about the modern story is it ropes the reader in with plot and resolution, but after doing that, it can be anything.

"I like to say that the 'Great American Novel' doesn't exist and that the 'Great Canadian Novel' is a collection of stories."