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In her unyielding debut story collection, Kate Segriff’s characters
are fierce, unapologetic, and not afraid to plunge headfirst into
chaos. Animals in Captivity takes us from the 1930’s to the present
day, from Fogo Island, NL, to Lethbridge, Alberta, from speakeasies
to heavy metal concerts on Hudson’s Bay, where we meet
neurodiverse miners, opiate-dependent, train-riding teens, and a
tree-murdering grandma. With matter-of-fact prose and dark
humour, Segriff guides us through desperate times and unusual
circumstances toward hope in an imperfect world.
For fans of We Want What We Want by Alix Ohlin, David Huebert’s
Chemical Valley, and Cary Fagen’s Great Adventures for the Faint
of Heart, Animals in Captivity feature a motley cast, each ready to
snatch their due from the clenched hand of the universe.
Kate Segriff (she/her) is a Toronto-based writer and filmmaker. Her
work has been published in Atlanta Review, The Malahat Review,
Prism International, and Best Canadian Poets, among others. Her
short films have appeared in over 50 independent festivals
worldwide. She won the 2023 Edinburgh Short Story Prize, the
2021 Space and Time Magazine Iron Writer Award, the 2019 Pulp
Literature Bumblebee Prize for Flash Fiction, the 2018 Wilda Hearn
Prize for Flash Fiction, and the 2018 Connor Prize for Poetry. She
was shortlisted or runner up for several short fiction and poetry
awards including: The Short-Long Distance Writer’s award, The
Peter Hinchcliffe Award for Short Fiction, Room Magazine Short
Fiction Award, Riddle Fence Poetry Award, Room Magazine Poetry
Contest, Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, Cured Murphy Spoken Word
Competition, The Thomas Morton Poetry Award, and the Vallum
Award for Poetry.
Advance Praise for Kate Segriff's Animals in Captivity:
“So clever and fresh in its approach... I hadn’t seen anything like it
before."
—Ian Rankin, judge, Edinburgh Short Story Prize 2023
“K.R. Segriff writes about people living on the edge and often falling over it. She takes her
characters to the tipping point and observes them in the aftermath. There is an essential truth
in Segriff’s writing about what it is to be human: the beauty, the horror, and the humour of it.
The stories are crafted seamlessly and the characters are hauntingly real. Animals in Captivity is a
collection that thrums with intelligence and empathy. I understand the world better having
read this sharp and absorbing debut.”
—SUSIE TAYLOR, author of Vigil
“Kate Segriff’s stories zero in on rural animals and urban animals, a debut collection limning
vivid accounts of turf wars and trailer parks, addiction and rehab, domestic abuse, ER visits,
mental health, and hair metal bands. Animals in Captivity unleashes strange, tumultuous
feminist fables, impolite and brimming with raw filmic energy.”
—MARK ANTHONY JARMAN, author of Burn Man
“Segriff has a gift for drawing you into a whole world in just a few sentences, and her tough
and tender characters will linger in your mind for days. These stories read like Lucia Berlin if
she’d spent time in the Canadian backwoods, wry and sharp and mischievous and fiercely
alive.”
—AIMEE WALL, author of We, Jane
Cover art: Darren Whalen, "Tongue Tied"