Come out to Toronto for the double launch of Caroline Adderson‘s Giller-longlisted A Way to Be Happy (Sep 10, 2024) and Richard Kelly Kemick‘s Hello, Horse (Aug 6, 2024)! Both authors will be appearing and reading from their new short story collections, along with a discussion and audience Q&A. Books will be available for sale and signing from Ben McNally Books.
The launch will take place on Thursday, October 3 at 5PM.
Get A Way to Be Happy here!
Get Hello, Horse here!
Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize
Short stories about disparate characters consider what it means to find happiness.
On New Year’s Eve, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town, where she receives a life-changing visitation, and a Russian hitman, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson’s A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others.
Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister, Ellen in Pieces, The Sky Is Falling, Sitting Practice, and A History of Forgetting), two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings), as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.
Taut, stylish stories take on big moral questions from surprising perspectives.
A teenager’s job mucking stalls at a dog track takes a strange turn when his co-worker finds a new religion at odds with winning streaks. Two brothers set out in search of fame upon the frozen waters of a subarctic lake. After her mother’s death, a high school student tries to make rent by winning the Unitarian Church’s Annual Young Writer’s Short Story Competition. An incarcerated man considers the nature of justice between shifts with his fellow inmates at Nations at War, the ultimate live-action experience for tourists eager to learn about the Canadian Civil War.
Spanning states and provinces, and featuring an apocalypse, a coterie of ghosts, nuns on ice, and an above-average number of dogs, the stories in Hello, Horse consider the mirage of authenticity and the impact of decisions we make—for better and for worse.
Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning poet, journalist, and fiction writer. His limited series podcast, Natural Life, is an intimate and unexpectedly honest documentary on his cousin, who is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. Richard is also the author of I Am Herod (also on audiobook), which takes readers undercover at one of the world’s largest religious events, and Caribou Run, a collection of poetry. He is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s 2019 Award for Best Short Story. He lives in Rossland, British Columbia.
