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Francine Cunninghamis an award-winning writer, artist, and educator who spends her summer days writing on the Prairies and her winter months teaching in the north. Francine is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta but grew up in Calgary, Edmonton, and 100 Mile House, BC. Francine is also Metis and has settler family roots stretching from as far away as Ireland and Belgium. She currently resides in Alberta and previously spent over a decade calling Vancouver her home. Her debut book of poems On/Me (Caitlin Press) was nominated for The BC and Yukon Book Prize, The Indigenous Voices Award, and The Vancouver Book Award. Her debut book of short stories God Isn’t Here Today (Invisible Publishing) was longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Francine also writes for television with credits including the teen reality show THAT’S AWSM! among others and was a recipient of a Telus StoryHive grant. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have also appeared in The Best Canadian Short Stories, The Best Canadian Non-Fiction, in Grain Magazine as the 2018 Short Prose Award winner, on The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Prose shortlist, and on the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist, among others. You can find out more about her at http://www.francinecunningham.ca
"Praise for God Isn't Here Today: ""Cunningham's characters find light in darkness, music in silence, and moments of transformation when they least expect it.""—The Quarantine Review ""This is a fierce collection: fiercely smart, fiercely funny, fiercely inventive. Francine Cunningham takes the reader from strip clubs to God’s waiting room, from a tormented ice cream truck driver to a bored ghost with career aspirations. This collection almost reads like a novel, as the characters move in and out of each other’s stories—sometimes solo, sometimes in chorus—spilling out their tormented, glorious, messy lives to the lucky, greedy reader.""—Annabel Lyon, author of Consent ""Cunningham is uniquely funny even through homophobia, whorephobia, death and aching loneliness... Opening this collection feels like stepping into a lively discussion between friends you’ve known since kindergarten when someone is already mid-rant, in a good way.”—Sarah Ratchford, Maisonneuve ""The stories in God Isn’t Here Today reveal Francine Cunningham as a gimlet eye observer of humanity, with boundless empathy and a searing sense of humour. The prose is intimate and direct, like an honest best friend breathlessly telling all, while embarking on formal experimentation that guides the reader through the grand possibilities of fiction.""—Doretta Lau, author of How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? ""'Pornorama,' 'Spectre Sex,' 'Mickey’s Bar': these Francine Cunningham stories pop and pull my heart out. In her first collection, God Isn’t Here Today, the Goddess is most definitely here. An essential new voice.""—Linda Svendsen, author of Sussex Drive: a novel ""God Isn't Here Today is a collection, I feel, that is whispered in the calligraphy of ghosts. Cunningham continues to both astound and haunt all who discover her. Wow!""—Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed Praise for Francine Cunningham: ""A humorous and compelling piece on the art of conviction and manipulation, both binaries were excused in two different voices that belonged to the same person. The voice of the unconvinced guru as he succeeds in amassing a following was simultaneously profound in its social commentary and comedic in its doubts.""—Rawi Hage, author of De Niro's Game and Beirut Hellfire Society on the story ""Starting a Religion"" ""Reading Francine Cunningham’s 'Complex 2675' reminded me of Twin Peaks: dark and surreal, with high emotional stakes edging on satire, and intense visuals... I recommend reading it with the slow pacing those old nineties TV shows had, and a sense of weird foreboding.""—Carleigh Baker, author of Bad Endings"
