About Brent van Staalduinen

Brent is an award-winning writer from Hamilton, Ontario. He is the author of three novels, Boy (Dundurn Press), Saints, Unexpected (Invisible Publishing), as well Cut Road (Guernica Editions), a collection of short fiction. His stories have won the Bristol Short Story Prize, the Lush Triumphant Literary Award, and the Fiddlehead Fiction Award, and has appeared in The Sycamore Review, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Event, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. A recovering high school English teacher, tree planter, army medic, and radio announcer, Brent now finds himself working for the Hamilton Public Library and helping other writers find their voice. 

His latest novel, Nothing But Life, published by Dundurn Press, was released in February 2021.

Visit Brent’s website.

Contact Brent. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

From the publisher:

White Pine Award 2022 — Shortlisted

During a sweltering summer, Dills must come to terms with a horrific crime and the parent he loves who committed it.

Dills and his mom have returned to Hamilton, her hometown, hoping to leave the horrors of Windsor behind. But it’s impossible to escape the echoes of tragedy, and trouble always follows trouble.

When Dills hurts a new classmate, it comes out in court that he was in the Windsor High library when the shooter came in. But he won’t talk about what he saw, what he still sees whenever he closes his eyes. He can’t. He definitely can’t tell anyone that the Windsor Shooter is his stepfather, Jesse, that Jesse can speak into his mind from hundreds of kilometres away, and that Dills still loves him even though he committed an unspeakable crime.

To learn about Brent’s books, visit his website.

Praise

“van Staalduinen does an excellent job of capturing a teen voice and capturing Dills’s emotional and challenging journey towards healing.”

Canadian Children’s Book News, starred review


“As Dills tells his story and shares the worst and weirdest summer of his life, it feels deliciously like eavesdropping. A compelling read.“

Karen Bass, author of Two Times a Traitor

“Brent van Staalduinen has once again created an unforgettable character and voice. In Dills, he brings forth our seething, hurting unpredictability along with all of our innocence, reminding us that love is that thing which complicates us and yet also, ultimately, makes us who we are. Nothing but Life is a gentle and yet razor-sharp look into what hurts and heals us, filled with a wisdom that permeates every sentence.”

Amanda Leduc, author of The Centaur’s Wife