J.R. McCONVEY
J.R. McCONVEY
I write books and stuff
false bodies: a novel
different beasts: stories
Goose Lane Editions, 2019
Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
(Speculative Fiction)
“A compelling creature... like Stuart McLean channeling H.P. Lovecraft.”
—Winnipeg Free-Press
​A bear runs amok in a luxury hotel. A daily swim at the local pool becomes a question of life or death. The champion of a border wall faces an unexpected adversary.
The twelve stories in Different Beasts ask what it means to be both human and monster. Shape-shifting waifs, haunted stuffies, scavenging drones, insectoid demon-gods, and mutant angels all come to life in this wildly imagined debut.
​
“Poignant and evocative… DIFFERENT BEASTS creates a series of specific worlds that linger long after the story is finished. It is a collection not easily forgotten.”
–Ottawa Review of Books
​
“J.R. McConvey’s debut roars like an untamed goblin—an instantly charming one... an excellent choice for readers who relish being disturbed and unsettled.”–Apple Books Review
​
“DIFFERENT BEASTS made me fall in love with the craft of short stories all over again… This is the work of a writer of beastly talent, vision and guts.” –Brian Francis, author of Break in Case of Emergency
​
"Here is the human understory, a tour through the internal wilderness of soul after troubles soul. As their maker, J.R. McConvey considers each one with a clear, unfailing gaze. More than that, he does so in language that sings. –Alissa York, author of The Naturalist
​​
You can find samples of my fiction here.
.jpeg)
Breakwater Books
Coming October 2024
Preorder now
​A genre-bending noir, and perhaps the squiddiest novel ever written, False Bodies creates a horror/thriller blend of the renowned Newfoundland culture explored in shows like Come From Away with the heart-pounding tension and creeping fear of Alien.
False Bodies follows monster hunter Eddie “The Yeti” Gesner to Newfoundland, to investigate a mass death on an offshore oil rig—which some say is the work of a kraken. A mysterious incident in Eddie’s life has made him obsessed with chasing unfathomable things, but when an antique diary plunges him into a watery world of squid cults, tentacled beasts and corporate greed, Eddie finds even his own fractured reality pushed to the brink, as he’s forced to confront an undersea power beyond human imagining.
​
"A unique obscenity, a delicious, rank and heavy chowder. More of this please!" – Tony Burgess, author of Pontypool Changes Everything
​
"A gripping supernatural thriller with a wry, noirish edge. With so many monsters loose in the world, I sure hope this isn't the last we hear of Eddie the Yeti." – David Demchuk, author of Red X
​
"A contemporary sea monster novel, and yes, it's as fun as you'd hope." – Andrew Pyper, author of The Demonologist and Oracle
​
​
​
​​
"Imagine a season of True Detective co-written by Jules Verne and Peter Benchley... a weird, wet blast. —Pasha Malla, author of Kill the Mall
J.R. McConvey lives in the far west end of Toronto with his family. His fiction has been shortlisted for the Journey Prize and published in Joyland, The Malahat Review, Weird Horror and other journals. His 2019 collection, DIFFERENT BEASTS, won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for speculative fiction.
​
Outside of fiction, his writing has appeared on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist, in The Walrus, the Globe and Mail, the West End Phoenix and other publications, and on TV for Discovery and CBC.
