ANNOUNCEMENTS
ReLit announces 2021 winners in third week of month-long celebration
Quill & Quire • Posted: April 19, 2021
ReLit, the prize celebrating books by independent presses, has announced the winners of its 2021 awards. The prize has returned after being dormant for four years, and is celebrating by retroactively honouring winners for 2018, 2019, and now 2021. Winners have been named in the categories of poetry, short fiction, and novels. Short fiction Stoop City, Kristyn Dunnion (Biblioasis) […]
43 books shortlisted for 2018 Relit Awards, as prize returns after 4-year hiatus
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After a four-year hiatus, the ReLit Awards have returned. The ReLit Awards honour the best Canadian books published by independent presses. There are three categories: novel, short fiction and poetry. […]
REVIEWS
Fiction Book Review: Stoop City by Kristyn Dunnion
Publisher Weekly • Posted: February 1, 2021
Quill & Quire Review: Stoop City, Kristyn Dunnion
What an assured and attractively variegated collection of stories. Set in Toronto and small-town southern Ontario, Kristyn Dunnion’s 13 short pieces are marvellous feats of pacing and styling bolstered by vibrant characterization and enviable turns of phrase. […]
All Lit Up: Tell us a little about your book and how it came to be
Indie Reading Room on alllitup.ca • Posted: October 29, 2020
Kristyn Dunnion joins us in the Indie Reading Room with her latest Stoop City (Biblioasis), a collection of stories that’s at once dark and funny and wholly absorbing about a gentrifying west-Toronto neighbourhood and a cast of characters down on their luck.
Read on for our Q&A with Kristyn about how the stories in her collection are rooted in her experiences working in the community mental health sector, how the paranormal plays a role in her work, and about the badass cover of her book. Then, head over to the ALU Instagram for Kristyn’s reading from Stoop City.
Bonus: get 20% off Stoop City right here on All Lit Up with promo code READINGROOM until November 5th! […]
The fall’s best new books from independent publishers
Globe and Mail / Jade Colbert • Published October 20, 2020
A related premise underlies Mark Sampson’s All the Animals on Earth (Buckrider), set in Toronto some time in the near future, as the world depopulates. This isn’t a Children of Men, mass […]
Get Lit episode for October 15, 2020
cfmu.ca • Podcast interview with Kristyn Dunnion by Jamie Tennant
Listen to podcast / Download Podcast
Toronto at its Most Glitteringly Sad
XTRA* Magazine / Casey Plett • Posted: September 21, 2020
Kristyn Dunnion’s new story collection “Stoop City” blooms with characters down on their luck.
Smoothing linens with military precision is an unsung tradition in the janitorial arts. A properly made bed can console the itinerant, the broken-hearted, the homeless. Staging properties, she has learned over the years, is mostly about subtraction, about deleting personal history, something she takes very seriously. She continues to take things away with total exactitude, one after the other, until a purity in openness emerges, a balancing of light and air and material objects set in space; the lie of neutrality. This is the soothing of wounds, when complete; the calming of sorrows. Progress and satisfaction, here on earth. […]
5 books to read if you loved Canada Reads contender Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
CBC Books · Posted: Mar 27, 2020
Kristyn Dunnion’s book Tarry This Night is a dystopian novel in which a new civil war has broken out in the U.S. (Liz Marshall/Arsenal Pulp Press)
As civil war brews above ground in the U.S., a dangerous cult led by a man named Father Ernst lurks below. Tarry This Night follows the trials of Ruth who spends her life trapped in an underground bunker with a group known as the Family and facing the terrifying possibility of becoming Father Ernst’s next wife. Themes of misogyny, religious extremism and fear radiate throughout this novel. […]
Lambda Literary: Tarry This Night
Author: Alyssa Greene
November 27, 2017
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, dystopian fiction has been on our minds. Of course, utopias and dystopias have long been a part of literature and cinema, responding to contemporary politics by imagining their repercussions for the future. But dystopian fiction played an important role in mediating the transformation of American political culture in 2017, with classics like George Orwell’s 1984 skyrocketing up the New York Times bestseller list, Hulu’s timely adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and the rediscovery of It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis’ cautionary tale of fascism coming to America. All of this has inspired a robust conversation within literary communities about how to make sense of this turn to the dystopian, and where to find the potential for resistance and protest in a form that, on the surface, seems radically pessimistic.[…]
Pop Culture Beast: Tarry This Night
JL Jamieson
October 2017
Civil War has divided America, and outdoors isn’t always safe after groups of religious extremists carried out dirty bomb attacks all over the US and Canada. Father Ernst was a leader in the movement, and shortly after the attacks he moved much of his Family into an underground bunker to keep them out of the world. Since communications stopped a few years ago, he doesn’t know much about the more recent war that erupted after his acts of terrorism. He doesn’t really care. […]
Toronto Star: Women deal with pressure in this five-pack of novels
Author: Sarah Murdoch
January 12, 2018
This vividly imagined dystopian novel, set in the near future, unfolds over the course of a few days. A dwindling cult presided over by Father Ernst lives underground in terrible circumstances, with little to eat (we first meet this dysfunctional family of 11 tucking into a chewy infestation of weevils discovered in the flour), the women expected to cater to the base needs of the messianic father. Aboveground, civil war rages after what appears to be environmental collapse. Cousin Paul has been ordered to the surface to find sustenance. The action moves between Paul’s adventure and the daily traumas of life within the bunker. […]
INTERVIEWS
Globe and Mail
September, 2008
I ask the multipierced, tattooed, partly head-shaved Kristyn Dunnion whether some people may find her just as scary as the Ontario pit bulls to whom she co-dedicates Big Big Sky, her recently published novel for young adults (her author photo shows her receiving an adoring lick from a canine fan she calls “my boyfriend”). […]
XTRA Magazine Lambda Literary Awards Finalists
Toronto writers up for Lambda Literary awards
Toronto book lovers can celebrate this year’s local Lambda Literary Award nominees with a queer night of tequila, hors d’oeuvres and a few good stories. […]
QueeriesMag Video Interview
In The Spotlight: Kristyn Dunnion
Every month for the next year, I’m going to feature the work of writer I think you should meet. These are writers who have inspired me in our work together. For lack of a better word, I’ll call these writers students. But I’ll be honest – when it comes to writing and inspiration, the line between teacher and student is a very fine one. I’ve learned a great deal from each of these writers. That’s why I’m introducing them to you. […]
Suicide Girls Literary Interviews
May 26, 2006
Lovely Canadian born Kristyn Dunnion is an amazing author, performance artist, activist, and all around kick ass chick who Im lucky enough to have as a virtual mentor. She recently published her latest book, Mosh Pit. Do yourself a favor and pick it up! […]
XTRA issue 521
Oct 14, 2004
Housing worker and children’s author by day, burlesque dancer by night – welcome to the wacky world of Miss Kitty Galore, the gutsy and glittery hostess at numerous bar events about town. Before the clock strikes 12, she’s known as Kristyn Dunnion, but don’t let the jeans and T-shirt fool you, there’s a diva in there. […]
CM: Canadian Review of Materials
Spring 2006
Born on August 6, 1969, in Kingsville, ON, Kristyn lived there until she was in her late teens. Describing her natal community, Kristyn says, “Kingsville’s a small town, and it’s not as rural as it used to be. […]
Now Magazine Vol 25 No. 43
June 22-29 2006
INTO: “Dancing all night, long walks on the beach and hardcore. On Saturday (June 24) I’m hosting the first half of Iconic, a tribute to the stars by local rebel burlesque troupe Skin Tight Outta Sight outdoors on the Wellesley Stage from 8 to 11 pm. […]