Cecelia Frey is the author of fifteen books of fiction and poetry as well as works of non-fiction and award-winning plays. She has worked as an editor, teacher, and freelance writer, and has for many years been involved in the Calgary literary community. Her short stories and poetry have been published in dozens of literary journals and anthologies as well as being broadcast on CBC radio and performed on the Women's Television Network. Numerous reviews, essays and articles have appeared in a wide range of publications including newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and journals as varied as Westworld and Canadian Literature. Her novel, A Raw Mix of Carelessness and Longing, was shortlisted for the 2009 Writers Guild of Alberta (WGA) George Bugnet Fiction Award and she is a three-time recipient of the WGA Short Fiction Award. Her most publications include novels The Long White Sickness (2013) and Moments of Joy (2015); and a collection of poetry North (2017).
"This book is about unpacking clichés, all that has been hoarded
over the years. Frey pries beneath the surface, holding a
formidable dexterity with the light and dark features of story. Her
characters surface as those who make you laugh, and those who tick
you off."
br—FreeFall Magazine"Cecelia Frey knows the flower children. Then,
and now. Where did they go with their love beads and messages of
universal belonging and peace and love? Twenty years have passed
since three sisters and the three men with whom their lives would
mesh have moved on from the campus Cave. So long ago that they
smoked and drinked and philosophized in that campus club so
frequently that a table was named after them. They were the
Philosophers Circle.Cecelia Frey is adept at delivering both the
spoken and the unspoken memories of her characters; the melancholy,
the sadness, the bitterness over having arrived where they are
now--a place where they have "failed to make any coherent sense of
their lives." Known for her skill in delivering dialogue, the
conversations that run a gamut of emotion ring with authenticity.
These well-drawn characters evoke compassion, frustration, outrage,
and sorrow. As Frey takes us back and forth in their lives with
skilful storytelling, it is clear that she feels the same affection
and apprehension over the fates that befall them. This is a
compelling tale of entangled lives and human foible. "
--Betty Jane Hegerat, author of The Boy"Lovers Fall Back to Earth"
gives the reader rare insight into how grief, guilt, and trauma
impact a network of siblings and partners. The effect on each
character is often unexpected but also entirely believable. Cecilia
Frey's beautiful novel is, in turn, painful, entertaining, and
tender."
--Paul Butler, author of The Widow's Fire"From the very first
paragraph through to the novel's close, author Cecelia Frey will
draw you in to this story of three close, but temperamentally
different, sisters, their divergent paths and the impact of a
tragedy. Themes of love and marriage, aspirations met and unmet,
self-realization, loss, infidelity, forgiveness and redemption, are
not new. But it is Frey's exploration of character that breathes
new life into those narratives. With clarity, surety and a
straight-forward style, she drives the story-line quickly forward,
while, in seeming counterpoint, skilfully allowing herself the
slower pace, the time--and the reader the luxury-- to savour the
qualities unique to each character. She, and we, relish the details
that give them depth and roundness; reveal their goodness as well
as their weaknesses, inconsistencies, reflections, self-doubts; in
short, what makes them human, their relationships and struggles
believable. We recognize ourselves. It is that gift of
characterization that makes this novel an outstanding, compelling
read."
--Rhoda Rabinowitz Green, author of Aspects of Nature and Moon Over
Mandalay
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