On Thursday, September 15 at 6pm, join Massy Arts, Massy Books, and writer Erica McKeen for the launch of her debut novel Tear (2022, Invisible Publishing).
At this in-person event, McKeen will be joined by guest readers Sophie Crocker and Vivian Li for a night to celebrate both poetry and prose, as well as to explore topics of gender identity, memory, and mental illness.
Tear is a reclamation of female rage and a horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman (a novel focused on the character’s psychological development). Blurring the real and the imagined, this lyric debut novel unflinchingly engages with contemporary feminist issues and explores the detrimental effects of false narratives, gaslighting, and manipulation on young women.
This event is free + open to all of our community, and registration is mandatory. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Covid Protocols: For all in-person events, attendees must provide proof of vaccination, wear a mask (N95 masks are encouraged and recommended as they offer the best protection), and consent to having their temperature checked at the front door. We ask that if you are showing any symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
Please be sure to register for this event.
You can purchase Tear by Erica McKeen at Massy Books.
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Book
A reclamation of female rage and a horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman.
Frances is quiet and reclusive, so much so that her upstairs roommates sometimes forget she exists. Isolated in the basement, and on the brink of graduating from university, Frances herself starts to question the realities of her own existence. She can’t remember there being a lock on the door at the top of the basement stairs—and yet, when she turns the knob, the door won’t open. She can’t tell the difference between her childhood memories, which bloom like flowers in the dark basement, and her dreams. Worse still, she can’t ignore the very real tapping sound now coming—insistently, violently—threatening to break through her bedroom wall.
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Author
Erica McKeen was born in London, Ontario. She studied at Western University, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for the Guernica Prize, and shortlisted for The Malahat Review Open Season Awards.
Her stories have been published in PRISM international, filling Station, The Dalhousie Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples.
Tear is her first novel.