Alissa York
Born in 1970, Alissa York has lived all over Canada and now makes her home in Toronto with her husband, writer/filmmaker Clive Holden.
York's award-winning short fiction has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, and in the collection, Any Given Power, published by Arbeiter Ring Publishing in 1999. Her first novel, Mercy, published by Random House Canada in 2003, was a Canadian bestseller. Dutch, French and US editions have appeared since.
York's novel Effigy was published by Random House Canada in April, 2007, and was short-listed for the Giller Prize. International rights to the book have sold in Holland, Italy, France and the US.
“There's a switch inside every one of us that I guess grew there as a necessary part of survival. How can you drag a fish up out of the river for your supper if you feel the yank of the hook in your own cheek? I get that part. We can't feel for everyone and everything all the time. We'd die of fear or sorrow a hundred times a day. The thing is, it's gotten so we flick the switch off like it's nothing. And, more often than not, we forget to turn it back on.”
Alissa York