Author Spotlight Q&A: Adrienne Gruber
On today’s Author Spotlight Q&A, we are featuring Adrienne Gruber, author of Buoyancy Control, Q&A, and Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: Essays on Motherhood.
B*: What does being part of the Book*hug author family mean to you?
AG: Being part of the Book*hug family means that when you organize a book tour with your 9-month-old baby, Jay and Hazel will treat you like Jerry Maguire treated his one and only client in the movie and accompany you to as many readings as possible. It means that when your baby starts to scream-cry during your first reading, Hazel will take her from you and hold her even as your baby continues to scream. It means that when Jay and Hazel make a family trip out to the West Coast, they will go out of their way to take a ferry to the small island you live on with your family and hang out with your three-year-old for hours while she chats to them non-stop and makes them pay all their attention to her. It means they will befriend you and support you in ways that you couldn’t have imagined.
B*: Can you share another title from the Book*hug catalogue that has left a lasting impression on you as a reader?
AG: It’s difficult to choose just one, but I absolutely love Jennifer Still’s Comma, and have read and re-read it multiple times. It gave me new insight into what poets can do, and the creative freedom we have with form.
B*: When we see more large publisher consolidations and huge conglomerates dominating the marketplace, what does it mean to you to be published by an independent publisher like Book*hug Press?
AG: It’s a special thing, publishing with an independent press. My work is highly valued, but as a person, I am valued just as highly as my work. I have been extremely fortunate to publish with Book*hug. Jay and Hazel treat their authors with such high regard. Not only do they publish beautiful books, but they are just generally fantastic human beings who truly care about their authors.
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Adrienne Gruber is an award-winning writer originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of five chapbooks, three books of poetry, including Q & A, Buoyancy Control, and This is the Nightmare, and the creative nonfiction collection, Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: Essays on Motherhood. She won the 2015 Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron poetry contest, SubTerrain’s 2017 Lush Triumphant poetry contest, placed third in Event’s 2020 creative non-fiction contest, and was the runner up in SubTerrain’s 2023 creative non-fiction contest. Both her poetry and non-fiction has been longlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. In 2012, Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Adrienne lives with her partner and their three daughters on Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), B.C., the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.
