CASE STUDY longlisted for the BOOKER PRIZE!

We’re excited to share that Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize! Check out the full longlist here.

The 2022 Booker judges on Case Study: “A mystery story—or is it?—that takes us into the heart of the psychoanalytical consulting room. Or does it? Interleaving a biography of radical ‘60s ‘untherapist’ Collins Braithwaite with the notebooks of his patient ‘Rebecca’, a young woman seeking answers about the death of her sister, ‘GMB’ presents a forensic, elusive and mordantly funny text(s) layered with questions about authenticity and the self.

“We’re delighted to be the North American publishers of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Case Study, a fabulously playful novel of psychological intrigue that kept us guessing from the first pages through to the last,” says Dan Wells, owner and publisher of Biblioasis. “A joyful puzzle of a book, brilliant and funny, it’s no surprise to us that it has made the Booker longlist: our congratulations go out to Graeme, and we look forward to introducing readers to the world of Collins Braithwaite and Rebecca Smyth (or whoever she may in fact be).”

Case Study is Macrae Burnet’s second book to be recognized by the Booker Prize. His novel His Bloody Project was shortlisted in 2015. This is also Biblioasis’ second book that has made the Booker longlist in the past four years, the first being Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann in 2019.

Case Study was published in the UK in 2021, and has received wide acclaim since its release. The novel was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and shortlisted for the Ned Kelly International Crime Prize.

Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario. Since 2004 we have published the best in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and literature in translation. For more information please visit our website, biblioasis.com

The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969. Its aim was to stimulate the reading and discussion of contemporary fiction. The shortlist will be announced on September 6, 2022, and the winner will be announced on October 17, 2022. Congratulations and best of luck to Graeme!

Preorder your copy of Case Study here!

ABOUT CASE STUDY

Longlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize • Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022

The Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project blurs the lines between patient and therapist, fiction and documentation, and reality and dark imagination. 

London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.

In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling—and often wickedly humorous—meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.

ABOUT GRAEME MACRAE BURNET

Graeme Macrae Burnet is among Scotland’s leading contemporary novelists. Best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel, His Bloody Project (2015), he is also the author of two Simenon-influenced novels: The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014) and The Accident on the A35 (2017). Burnet has appeared at literary festivals in Australia, the USA, Germany, India, Russia, Spain, France, Korea, Denmark and Estonia. His novels have been translated into more than twenty languages and achieved bestseller status in several countries. He lives and works in Glasgow.

CHEMICAL VALLEY, SHIMMER, EYES OF THE RIGEL: Reviews and Interviews!

IN THE NEWS

CHEMICAL VALLEY

Chemical Valley cover

David Huebert, author of Chemical Valley (October 19, 2021), has been interviewed by Jeffrey Dupuis in the The Quarantine Review! The interview was published in their print edition on July 20, 2022. You can read the full interview on pg. 30 here.

In the interview, David says,

“Environmental subjects are polarizing and tend to get reduced through the discourses of climate martyrdom and sensationalism. […] I try not to reduce things to Good and Evil; I seek to focus instead on mess, entanglement, convolution, and complication. I think that’s a truer approach, and it’s one that suits the leaky metaphorics of oils and swamps, what I think of, sometimes, as the dank.”

Order your copy of Chemical Valley here!

SHIMMER

Shimmer (May 17, 2022) by Alex Pugsley was featured on The Quarantine Review‘s ‘Summertime Reading Hotlist’! Check out the list here.

The Quarantine Review on Shimmer:
There is something very intimate, very personal about these stories that remind us of the power held by a good collection of stories. We not only see the author’s growth as a stylist, but also witness the growth and transformation, or failure to grow, of the characters. Pugsley gives us windows into lives that are both familiar and yet distant, exploring them within the limits of the form. Shimmer is a great collection for fans of short stories looking for a summer read that will stick with them through the changing seasons.”
Get your copy of Shimmer here!

EYES OF THE RIGEL

Eyes of the Rigel (April 5, 2022) by Roy Jacobsen also appeared on The Quarantine Review‘s ‘Summertime Reading Hotlist’! Check out the list here.

The Quarantine Review on Eyes of the Rigel:

“Jacobsen’s novel, both epic and intimate, takes us on a journey through a world in the process of rebuilding, a world of uncertainty that has a familiar feeling to many of us as we emerge from the pandemic. This translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw has beautiful rhythms and reads like an elegy. It is a great read for someone looking to be transported to another time and place and feel like they experienced it.”

Get your copy of Eyes of the Rigel here!

Check out the first two books in the series here!

ROMANTIC shortlisted for the DEREK WALCOTT POETRY PRIZE

We’re pleased to share that Romantic by Mark Callanan (October 12, 2021) has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry!

The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry is presented by Arrowsmith Press, in partnership with The Derek Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, and is awarded to a full-length book of poems by a non-US citizen published in the previous calendar year. This year’s judge is Carolyn Forché.

The prize includes a $1,000 cash award, along with a reading at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in Boston. Winners will be announced on October 13, 2022.

Get your copy of Romantic here!

ABOUT ROMANTIC

A CBC Best Canadian Poetry Book of 2021

Drawing on Arthurian myth, the Romantic poets, the ill-fated “Great War” efforts of the Newfoundland Regiment, modern parenthood, 16-bit video games, and Major League Baseball, these poems examine the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, both as individuals and as communities, in order to explain how and why we are the way we are. At its heart, Romantic interrogates our western society’s idealized, self-deluding personal and cultural perspectives.

ABOUT MARK CALLANAN

Mark Callanan is the author of two previous poetry collections, Gift Horse (Véhicule Press, 2011) and Scarecrow (Killick Press, 2003), as well as two poetry chapbooks, Skylarking (Anstruther Press, 2020) and Sea Legend (Frog Hollow Press, 2010). He was a founding editor of the St. John’s-based literary journal Riddle Fence, and co-edited The Breakwater Book of Contemporary Newfoundland Poetry (Breakwater Books, 2013). He lives in St. John’s with his wife, poet and critic Andreae Callanan, and their four children.

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE reviewed in the NEW YORK TIMES

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) has been reviewed by Dwight Garner in the New York Times! The review was published online on July 18, 2022.

Garner writes:

A Factotum in the Book Trade is memorable because a) it’s well-written, and b) it’s close in touch with the books. […] He’s right about what a good bookstore should feel like. ‘I want dirt; I want chaos; I want, above all, mystery,’ he writes. ‘I want to be able to step into a place and have the sense that there I’ll find a book, as yet unknown to me, which to some degree will change my life.’ […] It’s an account of a life well, happily and grouchily lived.”

Read the full review here.

Grab your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

TEMERITY & GALL, THE AFFIRMATIONS, DANTE’S INDIANA, BEST CANADIAN STORIES 2021: Reviews and Excerpts!

IN THE NEWS!

TEMERITY & GALL

Temerity & Gall by John Metcalf (May 24, 2022) has been reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on July 18, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Dave Williamson writes:

Temerity & Gall is obviously a must-have for book lovers but, since it presents Metcalf’s energetic meandering from a re-union of the Montreal Story Tellers through colourful observations and unabashed opinions, it can be enjoyed by anyone seeking stimulation of the mind.”

Grab a copy of Temerity & Gall here!

THE AFFIRMATIONS

Luke Hathaway‘s poem “Caeneus” from The Affirmations (April 5, 2022), was featured by Atlantic Books Today as their poem of the month! The poem was published online on July 13, 2022.

You can read the poem here.

Get your copy of The Affirmations here!

DANTE’S INDIANA

Dante’s Indiana (September 7, 2021) by Randy Boyagoda was reviewed in Fare Forward. The review was shared through their latest online newsletter. You can read the full review here.

Reviewer Katy Carl writes:

“The antics of Boyagoda’s characters are as tragicomically uproarious as they are startling—and yet, as presented, also entirely believable. The plot delightfully follows Aristotle’s advice to prefer the plausible impossibility to the implausible possibility. What ensues is a genuine levity that lifts the reader over substantive plot points that, less sensitively handled, could raise a multitude of defenses. By lighthearted treatment of the truly ridiculous, Boyagoda earns the right to look with authentic compassion on characters’ serious sorrows.”

Get your copy of Dante’s Indiana here!

Check out the first book in the series, Original Prin, here!

BEST CANADIAN STORIES 2021

Best Canadian Stories 2021 (October 19, 2021), edited by Diane Schoemperlen, has received a great review in the British Columbia Review! The review was published online on July 16, 2022. You can read the review here.

Reviewer Carol Matthews writes:

“An anthology such as this lets you sample many different places and experiences that will stay with you, and it introduces you to writers whose work you will want to follow. As Schoemperlen says, ‘The best short stories … will always bring us news of the world and the shape of things to come.’ Best Canadian Stories is full of stories that do just that. It’s a collection well worth reading.”

Get your copy of Best Canadian Stories here!

Check out the rest of the Best Canadian series here!

THE AFFIRMATIONS, A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE: Interviews & Reviews

IN THE NEWS!

THE AFFIRMATIONS

Luke Hathaway, author of The Affirmations (April 5, 2022), was interviewed by K.R. Byggdin for the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia author spotlight. The interview was published online on July 11, 2022. You can read the full interview here.

An excerpt from the interview:

“LH: The weaving of art forms for me has very much to do with friendship, love, collaboration, community …: marrying words to music (as, in earlier books, marrying words to images), I enter into conversation with friends and fellow makers—an extraordinarily subtle and intimate kind of conversation, in which form and content take equal part, in which meaning can be manifest in ways that are not only verbal but also melodic, rhythmic, gestural, visual, sculptural….”

Grab your copy of The Affirmations here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) was reviewed by Ian Thomson in The Spectator. The review was published online on July 9, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Thomson writes:

“Full of humour, and gossipy in a good way, A Factotum is also tinged with an autumnal sense of loss and the self-examination of a man looking back on half a century in the trade. From start to finish the book is a delight.”

Get your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

Spotlight On: ALL THE VOICES CRY by ALICE PETERSEN

Summer is here and so is another title in our Biblioasis Spotlight Series! Biblioasis is proud to be the first home to several outstanding authors, so for the month of July, we wanted to celebrate the beauty of the debut with Alice Petersen‘s short story collection, All the Voices Cry (May 15, 2012). Don’t miss a brief note from the author below!

ALL THE VOICES CRY

Winner of the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize (2012)

An academic’s wife, struggling to keep up with her husband’s quest to find a long-dead author’s Tahitian love-garden, realizes that her own idea of paradise no longer includes her husband. An architect dreams of slender redheads, Champlain’s astrolabe, and a brush with mortality—and finds at least the latter at Danseuses 7 Jours. An elderly man boards a trans-Pacific flight in an attempt to elude the prediction of a psychic, only to understand too late how the prophecy has shaped his actions.

In All the Voices Cry, modern life collides with all the old pushes and pulls: city and country, the global and the local, the ideal and the real. Petersen’s characters chase the mirage of escape, and are brought up hard by reality. This is a book rooted in landscape, tangled in the brambles of personal history, and it introduces in Alice Petersen a wondrous new voice that is yours to discover.

“Finely crafted and pared down to their bare essentials … These are stories that work on multiple levels, and continue to divulge their secrets after several rereadings.”—Quill & Quire

“Alice Petersen’s All the Voices Cry is masterful and potent—incredibly satisfying for a reader.”
—Kathleen Winter, author of Annabel

New Zealander-Canadian Alice Petersen was the 2009 winner of the David Adams Richards Award, offered by the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick. Her stories have variously been shortlisted for the Journey Prize, the Writers’ Union of Canada competition, the CBC Literary awards, and the Metcalf Rooke Award. All the Voices Cry (Biblioasis, 2012) won the University of Concordia QWF First Book Prize. A second collection of stories, Worldly Goods, was published by Biblioasis in 2016. Petersen lives in Quebec with her husband and two daughters.

A NOTE FROM ALICE PETERSEN

The stories in All the Voices Cry were written between 2002 and 2010. During that time, we built and spent most weekends in a small log cabin on the shores of a lake just outside the Parc de la Mauricie in Quebec. I would walk the trails in the Parc, learning about the woods of Eastern Canada. Edible mushrooms, lichen cups, purple lightening weed with matching flower spiders, mosses and bog plants, the changing states of water and ice—all of these things were there to be read and understood as intrinsic parts of Quebec. As a new immigrant I hoped that the process of memorizing this landscape and noting down the details would make that place more familiar, so it all got mulched up and made into stories.

But writing the stories in All the Voices Cry did not make that place mon coin. Although we had that cabin for over a decade, I was still just visiting, even at the end. Perhaps I will always feel this way about living in Canada. I do not know. Other stories in the book span the globe, ending up back on the East Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, where I grew up. Having dual nationality is a kind of emotional waterskiing—I feel lucky to have a foot in two countries, although there also is a precarious, teetering quality to the whole arrangement. The stories are lightly interlinked.

I have always liked the book cover that Gordon Robertson designed for Biblioasis. The image shows young man launching himself off the dock into a chilly looking lake. There is snow on the dock. Looking at the picture, you want to say don’t jump! It’s so cold! But that’s life. We each have to jump, don’t we? We have to, because the lake is there and because swimming is necessary.

Get your copy of All the Voices Cry here!

Check out Alice’s other collection, Worldy Goods, here!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL, DANTE’S INDIANA, A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE, THE AFFIRMATIONS, THE MUSIC GAME: Interviews and Reviews!

IN THE NEWS

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Querelle of Roberval (August 2, 2022) by Kevin Lambert, trans. by Donald Winkler has been reviewed in Montreal Review of Books! The review was posted online today, July 4, 2022, and will be in their Summer 2022 print edition.

Reviewer Alexandra Trnka writes,

“A vibrant storm of gossip and myth … The language of the novel is rich and evocative, a compliment to both Lambert’s and Winkler’s instincts for poetry. Lambert displays his linguistic skill equally in images of the erotic and the abject, in a prose that entices and disturbs at the same time.

“[Lambert] dares us not to flinch … a gory, sensual, and provocative exploration of sex and violence, and their potential to redeem lives that have been deemed, for one reason or another, not worth living.”

You can read the full review here.

Order your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

DANTE’S INDIANA

Randy Boyagoda, author of Dante’s Indiana (September 2021), was featured on an episode of CBC Ideas. The episode was posted online and aired on June 29, 2022 at 8PM ET.

Randy Boyagoda says to producer Greg Kelly,

“And so if I think about Indiana, I think about the middle of the middle of the middle of America. And then I think about Terre Haute being high ground. Well, in so many different ways that just becomes, for me, an American figuration of Purgatory, where others would see Inferno. That’s again, the hopefulness.”

You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab your copy of Dante’s Indiana here!

Or, start the series with Original Prin here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

Marius Kociejowski discusses his latest book, A Factotum in the Book Trade (April 26, 2022), on The Biblio File podcast, hosted by Nigel Beale. The episode was published online on July 4, 2022.

In the interview, Kociejowski says,

“When I was first in England, you could go into just about any small town and head straight for the bookshop. By and large, they are all gone. With those bookshops have gone the possibility of conversation. […] I had this rather brash young Italian marine biologist come in [to the bookshop] and we started talking about why it is that bookshops are closing. He rather blatantly accused me, or rather my generation, of having failed to pass that knowledge on. And I think that may be, to an extent, true.”

You can listen to the full episode here.

Get your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

THE AFFIRMATIONS

The Affirmations by Luke Hathaway (April 5, 2022) was reviewed by rob mclennan on his blog. The review was published online on July 3, 2022.

mclennan writes,

“Hathaway seems to explore the boundaries of poetic form as it relates to an operatic storytelling, pushing at the edges of older forms with a new hand, and a new eye, and seeing what just might be possible.”

You can read the full review here.

Pick up your copy of The Affirmations here!

THE MUSIC GAME

The Music Game by Stefanie Clermont, translated by JC Sutcliffe (February 8, 2022), has been listed by CBC Books on their summer reading list! The list was posted online on June 23, 2022. You can see the full list here.

Grab a copy of The Music Game here!

 

ESTATES LARGE AND SMALL, TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE, QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL: Features and Reviews!

IN THE NEWS

ESTATES LARGE AND SMALL

Estates Large and Small (August 16, 2022) by Ray Robertson was reviewed in Shelf Awareness! The review was posted online on June 24, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Reviewer Harvey Freedenberg writes,

“A warmhearted and unconventional love story that’s also an opportunity for a gentle encounter with some of life’s fundamental questions … With Phil’s droll humor and world-weary cynicism, and Caroline’s clear-eyed determination to live her final days on her own terms, the two make for an appealing couple. Like the philosophers they encounter, Estates Large and Small only hints at answers to life’s deepest mysteries, but it’s a wise reminder that the journey is really the point.”

Order your copy of Estates Large and Small here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda (September 13, 2022) by Michael Hingston has been featured in the summer edition of the Literary Review of Canada! Editor-in-Chief Kyle Wyatt frames his editorial note “Without Great Seriousness” around Hingston’s latest book. The edition was published online on June 27, 2022.

Wyatt writes,

“It was with admittedly escapist relief that I greeted the arrival at my desk of Michael Hingston’s forthcoming Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda.

A writer from Edmonton, Hingston has been nursing an obsession with the tiny Caribbean island of Redonda, christened by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and located midway between Nevis and Montserrat. More specifically, he has found himself transfixed by the uninhabited micro-nation’s absolute monarchy.”

You can read the full note here.

Get your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Querelle of Roberval (August 2, 2022) by Kevin Lambert, trans. by Donald Winkler has been reviewed in Fugues! The review was posted online on June 24, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Reviewer Benoit Migneault writes,

“The translation by Donald Winkler, who was also responsible for the previous novel, is of the highest quality and once again stands out for its richness and respect of local color … Provocative and deliciously irreverent, the novel can be savored with an almost satisfying pleasure, commensurate with the disproportion of the conflicts and questionings that agitate it.”

Pick up your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

POGUEMAHONE, A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE, SHIMMER, ON DECLINE, CHEMICAL VALLEY: Interviews, Reviews, and Awards!

IN THE NEWS

POGUEMAHONE

Patrick McCabe was interviewed by Neil Wilson for The Ottawa Writers Festival podcast. In the interview, he reads from and discusses Poguemahone (May 3, 2022). The interview was published online on June 8, 2022. You can listen to the full interview here.

In the interview, McCabe says,

“It is not about the Winter of Discontent […] or English politics or Irish troubles […] but it is really about the secret, mysterious currents that govern everything, that we don’t understand.”

Patrick McCabe was also interviewed by Sam Jordison and Lori Feathers on the Across the Pond podcast. In the interview, he reads from and discusses Poguemahone (May 3, 2022). The episode was published online on June 14, 2022. You can listen to the full episode here.

In the interview, McCabe says,

“Often, when you tear things up, some tiny flicker happens. It could be out of a hundred pages, you get a collocation of words or a combination of sentences and something triggers in you: “Ah, that is what the book is about.” And you don’t quite know, but you start writing again. […] The first draft is trying to find out: what is the stone in your shoe?”

Pick up your copy of Poguemahone here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) has been featured in the “Summer Reads 2022: Books About Books” list in Fine Books & Collections Magazine. The list was published online June 8, 2022, and printed in the June edition. You read the full list here.

Rebecca Rego Barry writes,

“Marius Kociejowski’s A Factotum in the Book Trade (Biblioasis, $18.95) is the wistful memoir of a Cecil Court bookseller who both charms readers with anecdotes about Patti Smith and Martin Stone and also wallops them with statements such as ‘the antiquarian book trade is slowly but surely destroying the antiquarian book trade.’ A Canadian who emigrated to London, Kociejowski plumbs his experiences in the English book trade during the eighties and nineties—the major players and massive changes—and reflects on what is slipping away. He writes, ‘I want dirt; I want chaos; I want, above all, mystery. I want to be able to step into a place and have the sense that there I’ll find a book, as yet unknown to me, which to some degree will change my life.’ Agree.”

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski has been reviewed by David Moscrop in the Globe and Mail. The review was published online on June 10, 2022. You read the full review here.

Moscrop writes,

“Reading Marius Kociejowski’s A Factotum in the Book Trade is like walking through an endangered species of bookstore … [It] is cranky, obscure, charming, … and illuminating. It reads like a used bookstore smells. … Go open this book and see where it takes you.”

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski has also been reviewed by Laurence Worms, of Ash Rare Books, on his blog: The Bookhunter on Safari. The review was published online on June 10, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Worms writes,

“It is enviably and beautifully written, full of memorable flashes of description, bringing characters to life in a phrase … It is unquestionably the best-written account of the modern rare book trade you could hope to find.”

Pick up your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

SHIMMER

Alex Pugsley, author of Shimmer (May 17, 2022), was interviewed by Junction Reads for their series, ‘The First Thirty’. The interview was posted online on June 9, 2022. You can watch the full conversation here.

Yesterday on June 14, the launch of Shimmer was held in Toronto at the Ballroom in Gladstone House! There were readings, music, and conversation, and we partnered with Flying Books for book sales.

Pick up your copy of Shimmer here!

ON DECLINE

On Decline cover

Andrew Potter, author of On Decline (October 2021) was interviewed for CBC Ideas with Nahlah Ayed. The episode was published online on June 7, 2022, and was aired on CBC radio the next evening at 8PM ET. You can listen to the full interview here.

Potter tells Ayed,

“I think climate change is an effect of our civilization, but it becomes a problem when you lose the ability to do anything about it.

The argument in the book is that the real nature of our decline is not an event, it’s a process. That is: what have we lost? We’ve lost the ability to fix the problems we face. And I think climate change is the biggest one.”

Grab your copy of On Decline here!

HAIL, THE INVISIBLE WATCHMAN

Alexandra Oliver, author of Hail, the Invisible Watchman (April 5, 2022), was interviewed by Tabassum Siddiqui for CBC Books! The interview was published online on June 7, 2022.

An excerpt from the interview:

“Sometimes a line comes to you, so you take that line and then you model the poem around that. Sometimes it’s like a block of marble and you go in and chip into it, and you shape it into something completely different. But I think it allows for musicality and pleasure and some kind of intrigue—in the best case, the reader can feel a vibration.”

You can read the full interview here.

Get your copy of Hail the Invisible Watchman here!

CHEMICAL VALLEY

Chemical Valley cover

On Thursday, June 9, 2022, it was announced by the Atlantic Book Awards that Chemical Valley by David Huebert (October 19, 2021) won the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction! You can watch the full ceremony here, with the Alistair MacLeod Prize presented at 1:03:00.

Here’s what the jury had to say:

“In this courageous collection, David Huebert holds little back as he weaves superbly crafted stories of the dark, difficult, and gritty reality of being human. Whether it be the destructive impact we have on our environment, each other, or ourselves, Huebert tackles this challenge with intelligence and compassion, both in his language and style, and in the empathy with which he portrays the human experience. The intertwining of ugliness, beauty, metallic cold and human warmth, and destruction and hope, creates a visceral, hopeful, and rewarding experience for the reader.”

David Huebert, author of Chemical Valley, was interviewed in an author spotlight on the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia website for the Atlantic Book Awards! The spotlight was posted on June 8, 2022.

Huebert told interviewer K.R. Byggdin,

“Oil is the imagistic backdrop of Chemical Valley, but it’s also a book, first and foremost, about struggling people—guilty people, people in crises, hilarious people, people at turning points, sick people, people seeking help. It’s not all doom and gloom, either: there’s joy and love and humour here. I’d like to think everyone can find parts of themself in one or two of these characters.”

You can read the full interview here.

Pick up your copy of Chemical Valley here!