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<p>In prose that’s as sharp as broken glass and shot through with poetry, Teresa McWhirter unlocks the extraordinary subculture of urban adults in their twenties and early thirties.

<p>Winner, 3-Day Novel Contest (2013)</p> <p>Joshua Chapman Green is searching for answers. He is combing through boxes in the attic of his recently deceased mother’s home and uncovering childhood memories, mysterious letters, and perplexing photos of people he does not know. They appear to be circus performers, members of a travelling freak show, or Victorian era sideshow performers. Then he finds a crumbling copy of <i>Moss-Haired Girl: Confessions of a Circus Performer</i> by Zara Zalinzi . . .

<p><i>Five Little Bitches</i> chronicles the rise and fall of the all-woman band, Wet Leather. Each of the women is plagued by her own unique demons, but their devotion to music and the punk lifestyle keeps them pushing on. As the band progresses, they tour Canadian, American and European towns and cities—and all the alleys, gutters, back stages, vans, hotel rooms, highways and airways in between.</p> <p>Part punk rock travelogue, <i>Five Little Bitches</i> is full-throttle grit-lit.

<p><i>The Dreamlife of Bridges</i> is the debut novel from Vancouver writer Robert Strandquist. Leo is a middle-aged, divorced handyman capable of mending almost anything outside of himself. The denial of his son’s death, and his inability to deal with his own pain, has rendered his life fractured and untenable. June is a single mom struggling in the bottleneck of poverty, fighting to retain custody of her son.

<p>Winner, 3-Day Novel Contest </p> <p><i>Tacones</i> is a hangout for a subculture of outlaws and rejects--crackhead murderers, transvestite prostitutes, biastogerontophiles, hustler boys, and addicts?all painfully beyond denial, searching for connection, solace, humour, thrills, sex, and the perfect high. A rollicking and caustic romp through the violent and ambivalent world of the Toronto after-hours scene. Descend, if you dare?</p> <p><i>Tacones</i> was first published in 1997 after winning the 19th annual 3-Day Novel Contest.

<p>ReLit Long Shortlist, 2015</p> <p>Winner, Type Books Award</p> <p>In this daring act of self-examination and confession, the late novelist Nelly Arcan explores the tortured end of a love affair. All the wrong signals were there from the start, but still, she could not help falling. More than a portrait of an affair gone wrong, <i>Hysteric</i> is a chronicle of life among the twenty- and thirty-somethings, a life structured by text messages, missed cell phone calls, the latest DJs and Internet porn.

<p>Spat Ryan has demons. They haunt him by day and share his drink at night. Raised in Montreal by a bagman for the Irish mob, Spat has fictionalized or ignored chunks of his life too painful to recall. A chance meeting with an old friend of his father’s in a bar on the Main exposes the dark secret they’ve both been harbouring, the secret that has shaped and defined Spat’s tumultuous life.

<p>Best of 2010 Pick, <i>Uptown Magazine</i></p> <p>Meet Walter Finch, an ungainly kid who survives his cloying suburban childhood to make it only as far as the local mall, where he rises through the ranks to become manager of a shoe store.

<p>Finalist, Giller Prize </p> <p>Winner of 2 Saskatchewan Book Awards (Best First Book; City of Saskatoon Book Award)</p> <p>Finalist, Saskatchewan Book Award (Book of the Year)</p> <p>Winner, Canadian Authors’ Association-BookTV Emerging Writer Award</p> <p>Finalist, Amazon/ Books in Canada First Novel Award</p> <p>Rowan Friesen has made a career of drug-dealing and small-time thievery on the outer edges of Saskatoon. Shiftless and seemingly friendless, he is, at first glance, an unlikely protagonist.

<p><i>The Incomparables</i> is the debut novel from the Trillium nominated author of <i>Animal</i>. Lydia Templar is obsessed with fabric, the texture and weight of cloth. Through fabrics, curtains, costumes, she expresses herself in a way she feels incapable of doing in words. For the past ten years she’s apprenticed in the wardrobe department of a small Shakespearean theatre company and has finally been given the opportunity to showcase her designs.