About
Conor is a national award winning (and losing) Metis/Ukrainian writer and bird hunter living in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton). Born in Saskatoon, raised in Buffalo Pound Lake and Drayton Valley. He is a member of the Metis Nation of Alberta. His Ukrainian family are Settlers on Treaty 4 Territory.
Conor is the author of the novels Avenue of Champions (2021), Prairie Edge (2024) and the poetry collections An Explosion of Feathers (2021) and Old Gods (2023).
Conor’s debut novel, Avenue of Champions, won the 2022 RELIT Award, was shortlisted for the 2022 Amazon/Walrus Debut Novel Award and longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize.
Old Gods was shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Poetry and named one of CBC’s Best Books of 2023.
Conor is passionate about crafting narratives that focus on the relationship to the landscapes around us.
Comfortable with all genres Conor’s writing has been featured in The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, The Malahat Review, Grain, THIS Magazine, The Yellowhead Institute, and other literary magazines. His work has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories 2020, and Best Canadian Poetry 2020. In 2019 Conor received The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and in 2021 he received The Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize.
Books
(available anywhere but support local)
Praise for Conor’s Writing
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“Conor Kerr’s Avenue of Champions, is a map of amiskwaciwâskahikan with a host of characters tenderly placed and intricately weaved together. This book firmly held me in its grasp from the very first story and didn’t let go until the book's final lines, at which point I realized my heart had been in my throat the whole time, aching. Like saskatoonberries staining kohkom’s palms, these characters and this novel will live in your skin long past when you are through reading its pages.
Jessica Johns - author of Bad Cree
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“In Old Gods, Conor Kerr simultaneously exults in and elegizes the prairies and the many changing lives lived there. From stretched hands and stories shared to journeys across place and time, he reminds us of the ways we are all—human, animal, vehicle and land—always in relationship, running along together through the night between departure and arrival. Kerr is a caretaker of contemporary Métis prairie life that thrums in cities and in grasslands, and these poems tenderly mark the endlessness of this place.”
Jason Purcell - author of Swollening
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“Searing yet compassionate, sharp yet tender. Conor Kerr’s Prairie Edge is both a marvel of storytelling and a devastating critique of activists who care more about building their brands than taking care of their kin. Get swept up in this captivating story, then reckon with its startling implications.”
Alicia Elliott - author of And Then She Fell
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“Prairie Edge is a deeply introspective, philosophizing Indigenous Western that is filled with life, love, disaster, and freedom . . . . here we are rustled into trailer, reservation, university, foster care, and prison systems and the violence of imperialism is never once glossed over. Don’t be fooled, this novel also herds us into decolonial activism, sovereignty, and necessary criticisms all the while filled with ‘poets and dreamers’ and the roaring buckle of galloping Indigenous futurities. For fans of Michelle Good, Cody Caetano, and/or Jessica Johns—this book is for you!”
Joshua Whitehead - author of Making Love with the Land
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"Here you go telling your little stories again. This book is bullshit"
Pat Kerr - Conor’s Grandmother
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“This is a novel wise enough to know that the future we all want begins with our imaginations. A story both sharp and fresh, Prairie Edge dreams bison back into our everyday lives, our cities, and our future. Author Conor Kerr believes the prairie is calling the bison back, and in this novel he dares to braid threads of a storied past with the troubled present and a vision of a beautiful future.”
Michelle Porter - author of A Grandmother Begins the Story
Contact
For festivals/events/media/speaking opportunities
Contact: Steve Meyers
For Gossip
Conor’s Instagram
For publishing/literary inquiries
Contact: Cody Caetano