Freehand Books

Freehand Books Publishing outstanding Canadian fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and graphic literature. Want to stay in the loop?

Our publishing list is an eclectic, purposeful mix, illustrating the dual nature of the phrase 'freehand' – which represents both unfettered creativity (e.g., freehand drawing) and exquisite control (e.g., bull riders must not touch with their free hand). Freehand aims to publish books that show this balance of creativity and skill – in short, books of exceptional literary merit. Sign up for our monthly newsletter, Freehand's Footnotes, here: freehand-books.com/subscribe

📸 photo cred = 🙏Beautiful capture of Freehand author Sharon Butala (How to Breathe Water) & Merilyn Simonds (Walking Wi...
10/22/2025

📸 photo cred = 🙏

Beautiful capture of Freehand author Sharon Butala (How to Breathe Water) & Merilyn Simonds (Walking With Beth) in conversation with host on Friday where they covered epic ground on themes of writing and aging adventurously.

This event was sold out weeks ahead, but their new books are still here for you!! Warmest congratulations & on your unforgettable, poignant & indelible releases!

Thank you .ink and to the full team for the all-round support, humour and warmth — & warmest congratulations to all of you on yet another tremendously adventuresome festival!!

Thank you also for looping us back to Sharon’s 2018 interview on The Next Chapter about her true idea of happiness. Fans, have a listen 🎧

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapter/full-episode-aug-18-2018-1.4503830/sharon-butala-on-her-true-idea-of-happiness-1.4503960

Books

Review Rollouts continue! 🍂 The Winnipeg Free Press describes The Longest Night by Lauren Carter as a taut, enthralling ...
10/22/2025

Review Rollouts continue! 🍂

The Winnipeg Free Press describes The Longest Night by Lauren Carter as a taut, enthralling new novel where past and present collide ✨

“With evocative prose, Carter manages to cleverly entwine overlapping stories of Ash, her family and friends to create parallel worlds set 20 years apart. She’s able to aptly combine these elements to create a compelling story with surprising twists."
— Andrea Geary, freelance writer and editor in Selkirk, review for Winnipeg Free Press 🙏

The Longest Night is also currently a top recommended read 49th Shelf as the season settles into cooler and shorter days🎃

CBC Books 49th Shelf

Join author (Teardown 2016) & fellow authors discuss the punch & power of short stories at this Sunday, October 25 ...
10/22/2025

Join author (Teardown 2016) & fellow authors discuss the punch & power of short stories at this Sunday, October 25 at 5:00! 🫶

Clea’s latest collection, Welcome to the Neighbourhood was recently released with . Event description:

💥Within their brief pages, short stories have an immense power to transform perspectives, capture essential truths, and introduce us to unforgettable characters. Enjoy a thought-provoking conversation and readings from three local authors of outstanding new collections.

Set on an island in BC’s Salish Sea, Bill Gaston’s Tunnel Island follows characters striving to overcome pasts that often include a catastrophic error. The stories in Welcome to the Neighbourhood by Clea Young explore the labyrinthine inner lives of women, with a distinct Pacific Northwest flair. Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross incorporates elements of fable, surrealism, satire, art, and cultural criticism to deliver a wonderfully strange exploration of the creative process in The Longest Way to Eat a Melon. Moderated by Holly Flauto

Sunday, October 25 at 5:00 PM
R***e Stage
Tickets at writersfest.bc.ca

Juiceboxers is on the GG shortlist this morning! Warmest congratulations to author Benjamin Hertwig 🎊 🙌Reposted from Can...
10/21/2025

Juiceboxers is on the GG shortlist this morning! Warmest congratulations to author Benjamin Hertwig 🎊 🙌

Reposted from Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada

Today’s the day... the 2025 finalists have been revealed!

The Governor General’s Literary Awards celebrate the best in Canadian literature — and this year, 70 books have been chosen by peer assessment committees across seven categories, in both official languages. Explore the finalists in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Non-fiction, Young People’s Literature (Text) Young People’s Literature (Illustrated Books) and Translation.

Discover them all → ggbooks.ca

Winners will be announced November 6, 2025!


CBC Books

Online Fiction Workshop with Mikka Jacobsen!Hosted by Afterwords Literary Festival 🫶Sunday, November 2nd on Zoom!9:00-11...
10/15/2025

Online Fiction Workshop with Mikka Jacobsen!
Hosted by Afterwords Literary Festival 🫶

Sunday, November 2nd on Zoom!
9:00-11:00 MT
12:00-2:00 AST

We’ve all heard the adage “write what you know.” But what does that mean, exactly? Are there events from your own life that you think would make for great fiction? This virtual workshop will focus on how autobiographical details can energize—or even structure—novels and short stories. We will consider the distinctions between memoir and fiction as we explore how to craft compelling fictional scenes from both ordinary and extraordinary memories, lived experiences, and personal anecdotes.

Visit or link in bio to register for $30!

Batter up! ⚾️ 🇨🇦 “Kapelznik in the Bottom of the Ninth” is a feel-good story in Tim Bowling’s new collection, Graveyard ...
10/15/2025

Batter up! ⚾️ 🇨🇦

“Kapelznik in the Bottom of the Ninth” is a feel-good story in Tim Bowling’s new collection, Graveyard Shift at Lemonade Stand — currently on the shortlist for the

.abdou 🙃

Impossible to believe it’s been a month since the hometown launch of We Are All of Us Left Behind by . It will take seve...
10/10/2025

Impossible to believe it’s been a month since the hometown launch of We Are All of Us Left Behind by . It will take several posts to recap on all the intrepid adventures of this remarkable novel (and its author!) since the release party — so we’ll start with a moving and poignant essay featured Under the Cover for anyone who missed it.

In this personal essay, Bradley reflects on the writing of his latest novel and talks about growing up with limited q***r representation in literature and why it mattered to him to write a story that resists reduction, offering a more layered, human portrait of q***r characters.

Thank you Brad for writing this piece and to for featuring 🫶

LINK IN BIO to read full essay!

We are so grateful to our authors for their grit, heart and brilliant minds — and to the village of support we all need in publishing to keep doing what we do.
Happy Thanksgiving to all 💛

📸 = photo credit | author

Congratulations to Freehand authors Sharon Butala (How to Breathe Water) and Bradley Somer (We Are All of Us Left Behind...
10/10/2025

Congratulations to Freehand authors Sharon Butala (How to Breathe Water) and Bradley Somer (We Are All of Us Left Behind) — no #1 & #3 on Alberta’s list for the month of September! Thank you for tracking, sharing and happy weekend to all 🍂💛 🙏

🇨🇦

More Review News!Good Victory by reviewed in Alberta Views 🍂 Thank you to reviewer Kate Black for their insightful rev...
10/08/2025

More Review News!

Good Victory by reviewed in Alberta Views 🍂

Thank you to reviewer Kate Black for their insightful review of Mikka’s collection!

“One possible thesis of the book is this: people don’t necessarily act poorly because of trauma or logic. Rather, Jacobsen reveals that desire defies logic in the first place; maybe this is why it feels so shameful to say what we want out loud.”
— Kate Black for

Link in bio for full review

Review News!The Longest Night by Lauren Carter reviewed ✨ “Carter has a genuine appreciation for classic time-travel na...
10/08/2025

Review News!

The Longest Night by Lauren Carter reviewed ✨

“Carter has a genuine appreciation for classic time-travel narratives and the thought experiments they encourage, and she layers the novel with references and allusions to these texts: ‘so many books: slim novels about kids who slip through portals into strange landscapes and have to find their way back home, or black-covered texts philosophizing on the supernatural, the importance of talismans, walking counterclockwise … books explaining things like string theory, quantum tunnelling.

“Working within that tradition, Carter does something different by exploring various concepts through the lens of trauma, ‘how it messes up the hippocampus from recording endings, so the situation seems to still be happening. A time traveller stuck in the literal past.’”
​—Quill & Quire

Link in bio for full review 🍂

🍁 Saskatoon friends! We Are All of Us Left Behind by Bradley Somer launch reminder for tomorrow night (Oct 8 at 7:00!). ...
10/07/2025

🍁 Saskatoon friends!

We Are All of Us Left Behind by Bradley Somer launch reminder for tomorrow night (Oct 8 at 7:00!). Big thanks to for hosting and for guiding the conversation. Details ➡️

Join for the Saskatoon launch of his already-bestselling new novel with guest host Shawn Mooney!

This event will be held live in the Travel Alcove & available as a simultaneous YouTube stream.

About this new novel ➡️

Orphaned and stuck in a one-traffic-light prairie oil town, a young man yearns for a family to belong to and sets out to find his last known living relative, his estranged grandfather, somewhere in Serbia. Armed with nothing but his wit and resourcefulness, he starts his trek, from his hometown on the Canadian plains, across continents and countries, in search of acceptance and family, which he finds, but in the most unexpected people. We Are All of Us Left Behind is a q***r coming-of-age story about the powers of truth and lies, of what a family really is, and the persistence of hope when there’s nothing else left.


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