The first short story collection by an award-winning writer whose stories reach toward hope when they aren't heading for heartbreak. Lily displays a breathtaking ability to become each one of her characters, to move inside the bodies and minds. Lily's stories deal with the separations we choose to seek (physical and psychological) how the distances we keep determine how we live. Lily's atmospheric, intricate and precise language teaches us how to inhabit her stories and places us with her characters who must choose between longing and necessity as they navigate their sense of place, love, loss and possession.

Joanna Lilley has lived north of the 60th parallel in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, since she emigrated from the UK in 2006. Her poetry collection, The Fleece Era, was published by Brick Books in 2014 and her short fiction collection, The Birthday Books, will be published by Hagios Press in their Strike Fire New Author Series in 2015. Joanna's poems and stories have been published in journals and anthologies in Canada, the US and the UK, including The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Grain, The Fiddlehead and The Antigonish Review. Her awards include first prize in the 2005 Lothian Life poetry contest and first prize in the 2004 Worldwise regional creative writing competition. Joanna has a MLitt degree in creative writing from the universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde and is a Humber School for Writers graduate. In 2011 and 2013, she received Advanced Artist Awards from the Government of Yukon. With diplomas in plain language editing and journalism, Joanna earns her living as a public sector communications professional.

Joanna Lilley's profile page

"I'm reminded of Emily Dickinson's semi-mystical, epigrammatic lyrics, but also Elizabeth Bishop's pointillist portraiture - the exquisite image and restrained emotion." (poetry review) George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald