Two young men and a girl go scavenging for fossils—but find something entirely different instead. A girl inherits a baby from the estate of her older sister. An apparently aimless young man turns out to have surprising powers. From Journey Prize-nominee Nicholas Ruddock comes an outstanding new collection of short fiction. How Loveta Got Her Baby is a set of linked stories about growing up unsure of the world and trying to stand up straight, about love from afar and love up close, love imagined, love going right and wrong and sideways, about being young and imperfect. Stories that are by turns, funny, tender, sexy, painful, passionate, heartbreaking, and joyous: Ruddick writes with deft insight into who we are, and how we change.

Nicholas Ruddock is a Canadian physician and writer. He has won numerous international prizes and was shortlisted for the Moth International Poetry Award (Ireland) in 2020.

His first novel, The Parabolist (2010), was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and the Arthur Ellis Award. His second novel, Night Ambulance (2016), was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist.

Nicholas has been published in numerous international publications in Canada, England, Northern Ireland, and Ireland. He lives in Guelph, Ontario.

Nicholas Ruddock's profile page

Nick Ruddock’s How Loveta Got Her Baby is an antic collection of homespun stories of squids and chainsaws, far-fetched plans and less than immaculate conceptions. Characters appear and vanish and appear again in interlocking tales that open and close like a possessed accordion.

Mark Anthony Jarman, author of My White Planet and Dancing Nightly in the Tavern