Description
Octavia Cade’s new short story collection, You Are My Sunshine and Other Stories launches on September 21st and we’re celebrating the book’s unapologetic approach to the climate crisis and the radical transformations necessary to survive it. With Laura Jean McKay, author of the award-winning novel The Animals in That Country and new collection Gunflower, Stelliform Press is hosting a reading and discussion of two short story collections that bend perspectives and challenge readers. The launch will open with readings from both Cade and McKay, followed by discussion. We’ll finish the evening with a prize giveaway.
This online event has free, ebook, and paperback ticket tiers because we want EVERYONE to come and welcome this beautiful and inspiring book into the world.
Event Itinerary in (Eastern Standard Time):
- 8:00-8:05 – Welcome & Intros
- 8:05-8:25 – Cade and McKay read from You Are My Sunshine and Gunflower
- 8:25-8:55 – Discussion and Q&A
- 8:55-9:00 – Prize Giveaway, Thank yous and Goodbyes
About Octavia Cade’s You Are My Sunshine:
Sometimes change can hurt. This collection of short stories traces the growing pains of a new world, beginning with the death throes of our current way of life and ending with a world transformed by science and technology, and by grief, hope, love, and humanity’s will to transform. This is a collection that will both tear you apart and tend to your wounds. Cade’s stories are informed by science, tracing the biological and emotional threads that bind us, human and non-human alike. You Are My Sunshine and Other Stories is a promise of what worlds are possible if we allow ourselves to change.
About Octavia Cade:
Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication. She attended Clarion West 2016, has won three Sir Julius Vogel awards for speculative fiction, including for The Impossible Resurrection of Grief from Stelliform Press. She is a Bram Stoker Award nominee and was the 2020 writer in residence at Massey University.
About Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower:
The brilliant new short story collection from the Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author of The Animals in That Country.
A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men.
With her trademark humour, energy, and flair, McKay offers glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.
The stories in Gunflower explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be.
About Laura Jean McKay:
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country (Scribe 2020) – winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The Animals in That Country has been shortlisted for The Kitschies, The Stella Prize, The Readings Prize and the ASL Gold Medal and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her collection, Gunflower, is out in Australia and the UK in October and in North America in February 2024.
About Stelliform Press:
Stelliform Press is a small independent Canadian literary press which publishes fiction which address our world’s most pressing problems: climate change, ecological destruction, and the effect of these issues on how we relate to each other and to the other beings that live with us in the world. We see these problems as systemic and pervasive, exacerbating long-standing social issues, and challenging us to confront the roots of injustice. Our books have been finalists for or have won the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction, the William L. Crawford Award, The Otherwise Award Honor List, and the Utopia Award, and the Sir Julius Vogel Award. See the Stelliform Press website for more info.
Stelliform Online Event Safety Protocol:
We take all abuse and/or harassment extremely seriously. The following are steps we are taking to protect our authors and guests:
- Zoom password protection
- Chat monitored by Stelliform volunteers
- Zero-tolerance policy of abusive/harassing behaviour and inappropriate interactions/questions posed to authors or between guests; any offensive questions or comments will result in removal from the event
- If you are removed from the event your paid ticket will not be refunded