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Stephen Gauer
is one good writer
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From
prize-winning author Stephen Gauer comes a powerful first novel about grief
and loss: Hold Me Now, published by Freehand Books.
Order from
Amazon
Contact Stephen
Read an excerpt
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
FULL STORY
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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
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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
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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.
FULL STORY
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
FULL STORY
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