Newford is a fictional North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n city, the setting in many of Charles de Lint

Charles de Lint

Charles de Lint is a Canadian fantasy author and folk musician. He is also the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction....

's works of urban fantasy

Urban fantasy

Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods...

. De Lint generally avoids writing about cities that he has not been to; however, his hometown of Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 did not afford him the necessary freedoms for certain stories, and he began to set them in an "unnamed" big city. After several such stories, he named the city and expanded his development of it.

Interestingly, Canadian readers tend to think of Newford as an American city, while Americans usually think of it as Canadian, as it incorporates elements of both. However, de Lint has stated that he chose to definitively give it the American legal system.

Books set in Newford, by internal chronological order

• Dreams Underfoot (1993)
• The Dreaming Place (1990)
• A Whisper To A Scream (originally credited to Samuel M. Key) (1992)
• I'll Be Watching You (originally credited to Samuel M. Key) (1994)
• Memory And Dream (1994)
• The Ivory And The Horn (1995)
• Trader (1997)
• Someplace To Be Flying (1998)
• Moonlight And Vines (1999)
• Forests Of The Heart (2000)
• Tapping the Dream Tree (2002)
• The Onion Girl
  The Onion Girl
  The Onion Girl is a 2001 contemporary fantasy novel by Charles De Lint which takes place in the Newford universe. It is the first Newford novel centering on the recurring character of Jilly Coppercorn, now a middle-aged woman...
  
   (2001)
• Spirits in the Wires (2003)
• Medicine Road (2003)
• The Blue Girl (2004)
• Widdershins
  Widdershins (novel)
  Widdershins is a 2006 urban fantasy novel by Charles De Lint in the Newford universe. It continues the events of the 2001 novel The Onion Girl, where Jilly was left paralyzed and her relationship with Geordie unfulfilled. It also deals with a potential war between fairies and "cousins." Fairies,...
  
  (2006)
• Make a Joyful Noise (2006)
• The Hour Before Dawn (2005)
• Old Man Crow (2007)
• Little (Grrl) Lost (2007)
• Promises to Keep (2007)
• Dingo (2008)
• Muse and Reverie (2009)