Deborah Willis 

Deborah Willis’ novel, Girlfriend on Mars, was longlisted for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2024 Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and The Forest of Reading Evergreen Award. Her short story collection, The Dark and Other Love Stories, was also longlisted for the Giller Prize. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named a Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009 and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Willis’ work has also appeared in The Walrus, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, and Zoetrope. She has worked as a bookseller at Munro’s Books in Victoria, as a technical writer, and as a writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, MacEwan University, and the University of Calgary. Willis is an editor at Freehand Books and lives in Calgary with her partner, Kris Demeanor, and daughter.

Website: deborahwillis.ca
Instagram: @deborah.m.willis
Facebook: @deborahwillisauthor

FESTIVAL BOOK

Girlfriend on Mars

Amber Kivinen is moving to Mars. Or at least, she will be if she wins a chance to join MarsNow. She and 23 reality TV contestants from around the world—including a handsome Israeli, an endearing fellow Canadian, and an assortment of science nerds and wannabe influencers—are competing for two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars, sponsored by billionaire Geoff Task. Meanwhile Kevin, Amber’s boyfriend of 14 years, was content going nowhere until Amber left him—and their hydroponic weed business—behind. As he tends to the plants growing in their absurdly overpriced Vancouver basement apartment, Kevin tunes in to find out why the love of his life is so determined to leave the planet with somebody else.

An audaciously original debut from an “immensely talented writer” (Emily St. John Mandel), Girlfriend on Mars is at once a satirical indictment of our pursuit of fame and wealth amidst environmental crisis, and an exploration of humanity’s deepest longing, greatest quest, and most enduring cliché: love.

GET THE BOOK

Owl’s Nest Books | Calgary Public Library | Audio

BE CURIOUSER

• What does it even mean to be real? –The New York Times
• Calgary author Deborah Willis explores abandonment, fame and space travel in debut novel. –Calgary Herald
• When your Girlfriend’s on Mars, a tragi-comic future seems inevitable. –The Toronto Star