• Age: 13 to 17
• Grade: 8 to 12

When someone close dies, especially if it’s sudden, there’s often a strong desire to talk to that person one last time. To reminisce and say “I love you.” Or maybe get angry and ask why. In Before I Was Me author Chad Pelley places readers in his shoes as he reflects on high school incidents that continue to resonate with him years afterward. Drawn from the memory of several events, he writes about suicide with direct yet breathtaking prose. Not simply a tale of a boy and the girl he still misses sixteen years later, Before I Was Me is also a touching story about loss, grief and coming to terms with the past.

Chad Pelley’s fiction has been recognized by more than a dozen literary awards. His debut novel, Away from Everywhere, was a Coles bestseller, won the NLAC’s CBC Emerging Artist award, and was shortlisted for both the ReLit and CAA Emerging Writer awards, and a film adaptation starring Jason Priestley and Shawn Doyle was filmed in 2015. His second novel, Every Little Thing, was shortlisted for the ReLit Award, and Canada Reads winner Lisa Moore called it “Stylistically fresh and can’t-put-it-down compelling.” He has appeared alongside acclaimed authors at festivals such as IFOA,Vancouver Writers’ Festival, and Writers at Woody Point. His short fiction has won several awards, and has been published in anthologies, textbooks, and journals. He’s taught creative writing at Memorial University, founded Salty Ink.com, and has written for Quill & Quire, The National Post, Globe and Mail, the Telegraph-Journal, and Atlantic Books Today. He is currently the founding editor of The Overcast: Newfoundland’s Alternative Newspaper.

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