A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

WINNER OF THE 2018 WESTERN CANADA JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR: Vanishing and Other Stories was published to critical acclaim and garnered multiple award nominations, including the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Danuta Gleed Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the BC Book Prize; it was also listed as a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2009) and an NPR Best Book (2010).

EXQUISITE PROSE: Deborah writes with an uncannily perceptive grasp of the human condition, and critics have compared her to Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Raymond Carver.

DEBORAH WILLIS was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Her fiction has appeared in Grain, Event, Prism International, The Walrus, and Zoetrope. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the BC Book Prize. The Dark and Other Love Stories was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the 2018 Western Canada Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Willis has worked as a horseback riding instructor, a reporter, and a bookseller. She was a writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was the 2013-2014 Calgary Distinguished Writers Program writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary.

Author Residence: Calgary, AB

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

Winner of the 2018 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards—Fiction—The Diamond Foundation Prize

Nominated for the 2018 OLA Evergreen Award

One of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Book of 2017

A CBC Best Canadian Fiction of 2017 selection

Praise for The Dark and Other Love Stories:

“Willis is an immensely talented writer, and her new collection is a thing of beauty: sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny, always sharply observed, elegant and incisive.”
—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

“Willis’s fiction comes complete with a seal of approval from Munro herself. The similarities are certainly evident: Both writers are concerned with matters of the heart, and more specifically those moments in which the heart betrays its owner.”
—The Globe and Mail

“The emotional range and depth of [Willis’s stories], the clarity and deftness is astonishing.”
—Alice Munro

“The Dark and Other Love Stories is a kaleidoscopic, dazzling meditation on the switchback nature of love. Deborah Willis examines every side of love, dark and light, past and present, with precision, fierceness, honesty, and sensitivity. Who do we choose to love, and who do we choose to leave behind? That question haunts the thirteen stories of this magnificent collection. Every story is ultimately a love story, Willis reminds us, even and especially the strange, wondrous stories of our own lives.”
—Marjorie Celona, author of Y

“Strange, beautiful, and sometimes a bit frightening—just like real life.”
—Times Colonist

“The Dark and Other Love Stories is a bright, adventurous and lively collection. Deborah Willis seems to be able to go anywhere and do anything, taking the reader from the Ukraine to Mars. Beautifully told and strangely moving, these stories made the world seem like a slightly different and much more interesting place after I had read them.”
—Kevin Canty, author of Everything and The Underworld

“The Dark and Other Love Stories is an exhilarating book—funny and fearless, empathetic and sharp—and Deborah Willis is a dazzlingly smart and strikingly original writer. I didn’t want this book to end.”
—Molly Antopol, Author of The UnAmericans

“These are stories that I marvel at as a writer. From a reality show on Mars to post-Cold War Russia—the book has been meticulously researched. Yet the stories are not weighted by that labour—they're enlivened, made real. Truly the most impressive collection I’ve read in a long time.”
—Eliza Robertson, Author of Wallflowers

“These poignant, sharply-observed stories examine love in its many guises. A marvelous collection.”
—Kirsten Valdez Quade, Author of Night at the Fiestas

“This is a fully mature, beautiful realized collection. Indeed, in this dazzling suite of stories, Willis cements her rightful claim as a major new voice in Canadian fiction.”
—The Toronto Star

“Willis’s subtle machinations are masked by her urgent and propulsive prose.”
—Quill & Quire