Overqualified (short story collection)
book by Joey Comeau
Overqualified is an art project by Canadian writer Joey Comeau in which he wrote a series of cover letters as job applications to companies. The letters were collected into a book and published as Overqualified by ECW Press in 2009. The letters all start off as standard cover letters, but quickly turn very dark, and almost inevitably reveal the author to be mentally unstable. Excerpts from the book were included in the 2010 Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Overqualified (short story collection)” is book by Joey Comeau. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Overqualified, short and story, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “book by Joey Comeau” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7113875. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2010.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Overqualified (short story collection)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Overqualified (short story collection) primary sources, Overqualified (short story collection) archive and Overqualified research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Overqualified (short story collection)”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Overqualified (short story collection)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.