Stephen Gauer
is one good writer

From prize-winning author Stephen Gauer comes a powerful first novel about grief and loss: Hold Me Now, published by Freehand Books.

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Reviews of Hold Me Now

"a gripping story by a talented writer." – Michael Winter

"Hold Me Now is a potent and poignant examination of a father's grief." – VANCOUVER SUN

"Gauer builds a psychological study of unwavering breadth and depth ... The story is borne along to some extent on the crime-and-punishment drama, but much more on the shifts of the interior journey. Brenner's anger and sorrow feed on each other. He takes stupid risks that unexpectedly pay off. It's fascinating at every turn and it leads to a beautifully rendered catharsis. Have a handkerchief handy." – GLOBE AND MAIL

"[Hold Me Now] is an examination of a truly tortured soul. This story is so masterfully told." – CBC, ALL POINTS WEST

About Stephen Gauer

Stephen Gauer was born in Toronto in 1952. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked as a newspaper reporter for the Thompson Citizen, Barrie Examiner, Ottawa Journal and Toronto Globe and Mail.

Stephen's prize-winning short stories have been published in Descant, Prairie Fire, the Toronto Star, and Best Canadian Stories 10 (Oberon Press). His non-fiction has appeared in Geist magazine, and newspapers such as the Globe and Mail and Boston Globe.

He has a BA in Communications from Simon Fraser University (2001) and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia (2005).

Stephen lives in Toronto, where he makes a living as a contract technical writer. He also teaches writing at George Brown College.

Short stories

The man who ate sunlight
One day in late April, in his fiftieth year, Macklin was laid off by the software company he worked for, and rather than look for another job he decided to take the summer off. He wasn’t unhappy with the idea of work; he loved the way it gave shape and meaning to a day, to a week, to a year, but the prospect of re-inventing himself yet again, after seven careers in 28 years, was depressing.

FULL STORY

Jumper
A year after his wife was killed, Fitch sold his house in the south end of the city and moved to the North Shore, to a townhouse on the side of a mountain. His new backyard faced a solid wall of dark forest. At night, in the bedroom on the third floor, he could hear the trees moving in the wind. He imagined cougars, coyotes, eagles and owls alive in the darkness just beyond the fence.

FULL STORY

What should we talk about now?
Noreen had wheeled her husband into the patio garden of the nursing home and now they were sitting together in the bright June sunlight. She put a broad-brimmed Tilley hat on Bill’s bald head to protect him from sunburn. To cover his blind, unseeing eyes, she gave him an old pair of wraparound sunglasses.

FULL STORY

Man on the moon
In the fall of 2002 I flew to New York City to research a novel I was writing. I arrived late in the afternoon and surrendered at once to the heat. On the way to my hotel in the Village, the cab driver tried to tell me about the book he was writing, a definitive history of jazz starting in the 1840s, but I was too hot and too tired to listen. I checked into the hotel, went to my room and took a long cool shower. The phone rang as I was drying my hair. I knew who was calling. I picked up the phone. "Hello, Michael," my cousin said. "Would you like to dine tonight with an astronaut?
FULL STORY

Change your life
Only a few men are born sad; most, like my friend Don, have sadness thrust upon them. Don used to work for one of the big accounting firms in the city, but the last recession chewed him up and spit him out; at fifty three he found himself unemployed and unemployable, with a wife and two teenagers to support, a mortgage to pay, two cars to run and stock market investments that kept him awake at night.
FULL STORY

A is for Auschwitz
We lived in the south end of Scarborough, in a homely little gray brick house on a dead-end street near the lake. I was a cheeky kid, arrogant and curious, and too impatient to wait my turn.
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Homeless
When his marriage ended, Potter took his share of the money from the house and bought a condo overlooking the lake, not far from the newspaper where he worked. He'd never lived downtown before and now he could walk to the office in less than five minutes.
FULL STORY

The rise and fall of John Ferris
You may not recognize the name John Ferris, but if you‘ve visited my city you‘ve seen his buildings—sleek towers of glass and steel that reach for the sky, confident and modern, a little arrogant, too, not unlike John himself. He has energy and purpose and vision, and far more discipline than I‘ll ever muster.
FULL STORY

The wake-up call
The man who would later be known as Traveller X arrived in our city shortly after 2 pm on a Tuesday in early May.
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The black Strat
I edit a how-to magazine for women so it made complete sense for Louise to ask for help with the guitar. She wanted to buy something special for Stewart's 40th birthday and what could be more special than a thirty-thousand dollar guitar? Greg, my husband, shook his head when I told him. He's convinced that rich people are not just different than the rest of us, they're actually from a different planet. But Louise was my new friend, a recent arrival on the street, a gardener and a dog lover too, so I said I would help.
FULL STORY

Non-fiction

Guitar hero
The nadir of my music career was grade seven choir, where I was ordered by the music teacher to stand in the back row with four other shlubs who couldn’t carry a tune and lip-synch the lyrics to a dozen carols at the annual Xmas concert.

FULL STORY

No questions, just lend a hand
A few Sundays ago, the day after my grand-daughter died, I went to visit my mother.

FULL STORY

Goodbye Amelia
On the morning of Tuesday, June 26, 2007, I went into hospital to donate a kidney to my 27-year-old grand-daughter Amelia.

FULL STORY

Joint Venture

On the day of the transplant, I woke up at 5, a few minutes before the alarm. I got out of bed, put on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, took the dog out, and carried the garbage cans out to the curb. The morning air felt warm and humid. My bag was packed and I was ready and there was nothing else to do so I sat on the front step and waited for the cab.

FULL STORY

A story about my father
For the last six months, my father has spent all of his nights and most of his days in a pink room on the second floor of LeisureWorld, a nursing home near Lake Ontario in suburban Toronto.

FULL STORY

Ladder 25
Ladder 25 of the New York City Fire Department is a small fire station on West 77th Street, on the upper west side of Manhattan. At the beginning of October, I was staying for a few days in a studio apartment in a brownstone just down the street from Ladder 25, and every morning on my way to the subway, and every evening, on my way back, I would stop at the sidewalk memorial of flowers, candles, photos and messages paying tribute to the six firefighters who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

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