Fiction
For the stories “My Muse is a Tramp” and “My Muse is Tired of Literature” in 200% Cracked Wheat
Edmonton Journal
“Barbara Mulcahy’s impertinent muses are in a class all of their own.”
For the story “Texas Two-Step” in Boundless Alberta, NeWest
Edmonton Journal, May 8, 1994
“My favorite story in the NeWest anthology, Boundless Alberta, is called Texas Two-Step, by Barbara Mulcahey of North Str. (For culture-vultures with a map, North Star is a literary hotbed somewhere south of Manning.) In the story, a rural woman is infuriated after losing an environmental battle at a northern Alberta pulp mill hearing. To cheer up, she joins a country dance class. She ends up with her arms around a stubborn feller-buncher operator who opposed her at the hearings. Anger dances with forgiveness. “He leaves a comfortable distance but still holds me so that I know he’s holding me. And he smells nice. Like a person.”
Edmonton Journal
“Authors ranged from Rudy Wiebe to Mary Howes to Barbara Mulcahy…whose contemporary variation on the loge dancer’s (sociological) waltz kicks off the book in winning form.”
Calgary Herald, November 12, 1993
“Van Herk declined to pick a favorite story. But she drew attention to Texas Two-Step by Barbara Mulcahy which opens the collection. It finds a committed environmentalist taking a dance class with a feller logger.
“It’s such a beautiful vignette of what Alberta’s all about,” van Herk said.
“Politically as well as culturally, demographically.”
Edmonton Journal
“Another highlight is Barbara Mulcahy’s brisk and nimble Texas Two-Step, which throws together an environmentalist and a logger as partners in a dance class in a Northern Alberta town.”
“…Sacuta’s Joey and his neighborhood are vid and tangible. It’s the same with Barbara Mulcahy’s dancers, whose story emerges from strong, simple language.”