An anthology is such a mixed bag of writing. I remember that during my undergraduate degree, I would always choose anthologies to try out new authors -- and at that time, the height of identity politics, many of the anthologies I chose had to do with more marginalized authors: people of colour, LGBT writers. A few years later anthologies actually depressed me, because I felt there was too many writers that were just filling pages, rather than being very strong work. Collections often felt like they were just scanning the surface, and to me this accentuated the publishing world's marginalization of some of these writers; that it was probably easier to sell a collection by disabled women, for example, than just publishing a book by one of the authors even if it was stronger. It somehow felt like an "easy" method of addressing my concern about having read predominantly white writers at that time.

So Skins has its limitations for me as a reader.The strongest works here were those that didn't just confirm for me my own knowledge about indigenous peoples (such as stories that seem only to affirm their humanity, which often read overly simplified). So Alootook Ipellie's telling of a love triangle and the violence that follows in a surprise ending was great. I was terrified reading Joseph Bruchac's story of how the bones of a malevolent dead relative murders two parents, and how the children found the way to bring their parents back. I found it hard to get into the Sherman Alexie multi-voiced narrrative, but found the structure interesting. I love the writing of Louise Erdrich and Thomas King for their warmth; several other writers struck me as evoking a similar response, with their stories easy to fall into and absorbing for me. These included Linda Hogan, Briar Grace-Smith, Zion A. Komene, and Patricia Grace. Melissa Lucashenko's story of lust was just edgy enough without being precious, which I think is hard to pull off. ( )