These acclaimed, must-read new novels immerse readers in searing family dramas set in rural North American communities. With unforgettable storylines and breathtaking prose, they illuminate heartwrenching generational inheritances of pain and violence—as well as the love and resilience of those living on the edge. Three sisters fight for ownership of their dead father’s farm in Kevin Hardcastle’s propulsive and thrilling County Road Six; in the process, a long-buried family secret comes to light, revealing an unanticipated inheritance of violence. Following three generations living in isolated Appalachia, Zak Jones’ Fancy Gap is an unflinching look at the desperation that throws kerosene on the flames of opioid use, poverty, illness, and apocalyptic Christianity. They’ll speak about how they crafted these revelatory novels with attention and empathy.

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Event Participants:

Kevin Hardcastle

KEVIN HARDCASTLE is a fiction writer from Simcoe County, Ontario. He is the author of the novel In the Cage and the short story collection Debris, which won the Trillium Book Award and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction, was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and a finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. He lives and works in Toronto.

Zak Jones

ZAK JONES is a writer, literary scholar and US Army Veteran. He is the winner of the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s 2023 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the 2023 Norma Epstein National Award. Zak holds an MA in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Toronto, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate studying veterans’ narratives in American Literature.