Advertisement
Join Shelf Life Books for Industry Night #6, our series of panel discussions on writing, publishing, and all things books! Each event will feature several panelists and an expert moderator/host. This month's theme is all about writing short & (sometimes) sweet, it's Spotlight on Short Stories.
Our host/moderator for the evening will be Deborah Willis. The panelists will be Kirti Bhadresa, Lori Hahnel, Amy LeBlanc, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike.
Shop our authors' titles here: https://shelflifebooks.ca/lists/LpELv_iMN7sM
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Kirti Bhadresa has fiction and non-fiction writing in many publications including The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire and Room Magazine. Her first book, a short story collection entitled An Astonishment of Stars was published in October 2024 by ECW Press. The collection was on several most anticipated lists pre-publication and went on to become an indie bestseller. Kirti's writing engages with themes of visibility, belonging and love, with protagonists who are quietly determined but rarely nostalgic.
Lori Hahnel is the author of three novels and two short story collections. Flicker, published in the University of Calgary Press’ Brave & Brilliant Series in 2023, was a finalist at the Alberta Publishing Awards. Vermin: Stories shortlisted for several awards and won the 2022 Short Story Collection Awards at the Alberta Literary Awards. Her work has been broadcast on CBC Radio and CKUA Radio, and published in The Fiddlehead, Joyland, The Saturday Evening Post, The Hingston & Olsen Short Story Advent Calendar and many other journals and anthologies. She is at work on a novel about pianist and composer Clara Schumann.
Amy LeBlanc is a PhD Candidate in English and creative writing at the University of Calgary where she researches the intersections of haunted houses, chronic illness, and Gothic spaces. She is the author of Homebodies (Great Plains Press). Her next poetry collection, I used to live here, is forthcoming with Porcupine’s Quill in April 2025. You can find her work in the Literary Review of Canada, Room, Canadian Literature, and Arc.
Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike is an assistant professor in the Department of English, University of Calgary, Canada. An award-winning fiction writer, poet and children’s novelist, Umezurike is the author of literary works such as there’s more (2023), Double Wahala, Double Trouble (2021), Wish Maker (2021), and a co-editor of Wreaths for a Wayfarer (2020).
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Deborah Willis was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Globe and Mail and NPR, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Her second collection of stories was published in 2017 by Penguin Random House in Canada and W.W. Norton in the U.S, and translated into Italian by Del Vecchio Editore. The Dark and Other Love Stories was long-listed for the 2017 Giller Prize, won the Georges Bugnet Award for best work of fiction published in Alberta, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail, the CBC, and Chatelaine. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Walrus, The Virginia Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, and Zoetrope. Deborah’s first novel, Girlfriend on Mars, was published in June 2023 from Penguin Random House (Canada). It was long-listed for the The Giller Prize and The Leacock Medal for Humour and shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Prize for Fiction.
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1302 4 St SW #100, Calgary, AB, Canada, Alberta T2R 0X8
