Megan Gail Coles
Author of Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, defended by Alayna Fender
Megan Gail Coles is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and the National Theatre School of Canada, and she has recently completed a MFA from the University of British Columbia. She has written and produced numerous plays. Her first fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, won the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and it earned her the one-time Writers' Trust 5x5 prize.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, her debut novel, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Alayna Fender championed Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles on Canada Reads 2020. Amanda Brugel won Canada Reads 2020 defending We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib.
Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Megan currently resides in Montreal, where she is a PhD candidate at Concordia University. Her debut book of poetry, Satched, was published in 2021.
Coles, along with Canadian poets Armand Garnet Ruffo and Hoa Nguyen, is on the jury for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
- Why Megan Gail Coles set her Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated novel on Valentine's Day in Newfoundland
- 'This might hurt,' promises Megan Gail Coles on 1st page of new novel
- Megan Gail Coles's debut novel is a tough-love letter to Newfoundland
Why Megan Gail Coles wrote Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club
"My book is very much about power imbalance. It is about people who have power and people who do not, and why. The novel is set in a restaurant called the Hazel in downtown St. John's on Duckworth Street. It takes place over the course of one day in February. I set a hard story in the hardest part of the year.
It seemed to me that the only way to get people to wake up was to actually stage the book inside of a living nightmare.- Megan Gail Coles
"I know there will be people who are uncomfortable with the tone of the novel because it is so full on. It is unrelenting at times by design. There have been times when I have tried to approach this same discussion and I have been ignored. It seemed to me that the only way to get people to wake up was to actually stage the book inside of a living nightmare. But I urge everyone to be brave enough to move through it."
Read more from her interview on The Next Chapter.
Books by Megan Gail Coles
Interviews with Megan Gail Coles
The Canada Reads 2020 contenders
- Alayna Fender defending Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
- Akil Augustine defending Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
- Amanda Brugel defending We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
- Kaniehtiio Horn defending Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
- George Canyon defending From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
