Michael Hingston is a books columnist for the Edmonton Journal. Called “one of the sharpest young literary critics in this country” by 49th Shelf, his journalism has also appeared in The Walrus, Wired, the Globe and Mail, Salon and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. His first novel, The Dilettantes, was a #1 regional bestseller and received a starred review in Quill & Quire. The Winnipeg Free Press said it “may well be the Great Canadian Comic Novel.” Born and raised in North Vancouver, Hingston now lives in Edmonton with his partner and two children.

The Dilettantes

The Peak: a university student newspaper with a hard-hitting mix of inflammatory editorials, hastily thrown-together comics and reviews and a news section run the only way self-taught journalists know how – sloppily. Alex and Tracy are two of The Peak’s editors, staring down graduation and struggling to keep the paper relevant to an increasingly indifferent student body. But trouble looms large when a big-money free daily comes to the west-coast campus, threatening to swallow what remains of their readership whole. It’ll take the scoop of a lifetime to save their beloved campus rag.