LOCAL HEAVENS Launch | K.M. Fajardo In Conversation w/ Rachel Lachmansingh

🍸✨ Join Toronto-based SFF author and content creator, K. M. Fajardo, to celebrate the launch of her debut novel, LOCAL HEAVENS, a dystopian love story and queer/BIPOC cyberpunk reimagining of The Great Gatsby. She will be joined by fellow Toronto literary writer and content creator, Rachel Lachmansingh, to discuss the journey of the novel, writing outside of genre boxes, publishing in the social media age, and more!

“Easily one of my favorite books of the year. Fajardo’s Local Heavens is not just a cyberpunk reinvention of The Great Gatsby, but a singular revelation in its own right.” —Olivie Blake, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Atlas Six

“Gorgeous, decadent atmosphere. Local Heavens pierces to the core of an American classic [...] An exemplary execution of the cyberpunk genre.” —Chloe Gong, New York Times Bestselling Author of Immortal Longings

“Beautiful, intelligent, timely [...] I could not look away. A phenomenal new talent has entered the SFF space.” —Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Sunday Times Bestselling Author of The Principle of Moments

A corporate hacker. An elusive billionaire. A society trying to survive the American Nightmare.

New York City, 2075. Filipino-American Nick Carraway has just moved to the heart of the fractured New Americas, where he’s struck by the city’s contradictions—shining corporate towers casting bleak shadows over the slums of a crumbling middle class.

When Nick meets alluring new-money Jay Gatsby, he falls for Gatsby’s frank charm and confident aura. But in a city where the wealthy flaunt tech-enhanced bodies to cheat death, surfaces aren’t all they seem—and as a corporate-sanctioned cyberspace hacker, Nick knows that no secret can stay buried forever. He’s the reason they don’t. And his latest assignment? Investigate Gatsby himself.

As Nick becomes entangled in the dark affairs of the elite—and the devastating fallout of their actions on the city’s most vulnerable—he must reckon with the limits of compassion and accountability across class and status. What takes precedence: Love, or truth? Heart, or soul?

A brilliant reimagining of Fitzgerald’s classic tale of glamour, desire, and desperation, Local Heavens examines the guardrails of morality… and the price of desire.

(For more info, including content warnings, visit the author's website.)

About K. M. Fajardo

K. M. Fajardo is a second-generation Filipino-Canadian writer based in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Global Business and Digital Arts before working in the tech industry. A speculative fiction writer, she enjoys stories that straddle genres and characters that find home in strange worlds. After a childhood spent roaming bookstores, she now lives and writes in Toronto with her rescue cat, Clementine, and can occasionally be found haunting the nearest café. Local Heavens is her debut novel. Find her online at kmfajardo.com.

About Rachel Lachmansingh

Rachel Lachmansingh is a Guyanese-Canadian writer from Toronto. She was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize, and has been nominated for several other awards including the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and National Magazine Awards. She’s published work across North America and reads for several literary magazines. She holds a BA in creative writing with distinction from the University of Victoria where she was awarded the W.P. Kinsella Scholarship in Fiction, the Lorna Crozier Scholarship for Poetry, and the Victoria Medal. Rachel currently works in the nonprofit space and as a freelance editor.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Queen Books, 914 Queen Street East, Toronto, Canada