Hannah Holborn's Biography

Hannah Holborn is the author of FIERCE (McClelland & Stewart, pre-order now, available December, 30, 2008).

Fragile and resilient--the characters in the nine stories and novella in Fierce are equal parts both. They are rootless, reckless, visionary misfits who have the audacity, not only to survive, but to do so on their own, often unseemly terms. When they seek love, hope and forgiveness, they find these in unlikely places: a stranger's scent, an apparition's chatter, a mound of dirt, and the touch of a snowflake to the skin.

A suicidal woman finds unexpected beauty in the cleft palate and Pickle Car of a woman she bullied during childhood. A Catholic teen turns quasi punk after losing her family in an aviation disaster. An elderly hermaphrodite prospector ends two years of solitude when her dead sister visits the Yukon. After a lifetime of excessive caution, an acrophobe drives the Top of the World Highway to attend her mountain-climbing father’s funeral. And, in “River Rising,” the collection's novella, a semi-recovered alcoholic obsesses over the paternity of her firstborn son—is the father the village idiot or rock star Kenny Wayne Shepherd?

Hannah's prize winning stories have appeared in numerous journals including "Room of One's Own" and "Front and Centre". She is the recipient of a Canada Council Grant for the Arts. Her stories are drawn from her Aboriginal ties and experiences with foster care and social services.