AUTHORS: Shree Ghatage, Grace O'Connell, Katrina Onstad

Calgary-based writer Shree Ghatage is the author of the short story collection Awake When All the World is Asleep, which won the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for several other awards. Ghatage is also the author of the novel Brahma's Dream, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book. Her most recent work, Thirst, tells the compelling and unexpected story of finding love in a WWII-era arranged marriage.

Grace O'Connell's work has appeared in various publications including The Walrus, Globe & Mail and Journey Prize Stories and has twice been nominated for National Magazine Awards. She has taught creative writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College and writes a books column for This Magazine. She also serves as the Associate Editor for Taddle Creek magazine. Her debut novel, Magnified World, follows a young woman who begins to experience unexplained blackouts in the wake of her mother's suicide.

Katrina Onstad's first novel, How Happy to Be, was published to great acclaim. Her award-winning journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Guardian, Elle, and Toronto Life. Katrina lives in Toronto, where she is a culture columnist for the Globe and Mail. Onstad presents her second novel, Everybody Has Everything, a whip-smart dissection of contemporary urban life with a fresh examination of our ambivalence towards parenthood.

Becky Toyne (Canada/UK) is a books columnist, editor and publicist based in Toronto. She is a regular contributor to CBC Radio One and Open Book: Toronto, and a part-time bookseller at Toronto indie bookstore Type. Find her online at beckytoyne.com

After a car crash leaves their friend Marcus dead and his wife Sarah in a coma, Ana and James are shocked to discover that they have become the legal guardians of a 2½-year-old, Finn. Finn's crash-landing in their lives throws into high relief deeply rooted, and sometimes long-hidden, truths about themselves, both individually and as a couple. Several chaotic, poignant, and life-changing weeks as a most unusual family give rise to an often unasked question: Can everyone be a parent?

Maggie is struggling to come to terms with her mother’s suicide. Suddenly, she begins to experience unexplained blackouts, and receives visits in her family’s New Age shop from a customer who helps her delve into the mysteries of her mother’s past in the American South. Is Maggie going through an expected grieving process or is there something deeper within her struggle? She may have to make some crazy decisions in order to work to feel sane again.

Vasanti, an intelligent yet sheltered young woman, and Baba, the scion of a prominent Brahmin family who longs to study in London, are strangers when they enter into an arranged marriage. Personal and historical changes, including the onset of WWII, bring the couple together in unexpected and powerful ways. The novel moves between verdant India and sombre London during the Blitz, as Vasanti and Baba grow together just as their worlds fall apart.