Better Next Year

Name: Better Next Year
Author: https://www.simonandschuster.net/authors/JJ-Lee/256819428
ISBN: 9781990160271

An Anthology of Christmas Epiphanies

By JJ Lee

LIST PRICE $21.95

About The Book

Christmas is trumpeted as a time of peace, joy, bounty and goodwill. Believers and non-believers alike covet the spirit of the holidays even when circumstances are screwed up.

Recollections from acclaimed Canadian authors combine with emerging voices from across the country in an anthology that debunks the popular depiction of Christmas while delivering its messages of hope and renewal.

Writers marginalized by personal circumstance, faith, and race share memories of surviving bleak Christmases past: holidays spent in shelters, or on the streets; families marred by alcohol and violence; personal struggles with addiction, poverty or grief; isolation and loneliness. Despite these and other obstacles, contributors strive to salvage the spirit of the season.

With contributions from:

Tolu Oloruntoba, winner of the Governor-General's Award and Griffin Prize for poetry
Sonja Larsen, winner of the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction
Joseph Kakwinokanasum, winner of the PMC Indigenous Literature Award 2023
JJ Lee, shortlisted for the Governor General, Hilary Weston and Charles Taylor prizes for non-fiction

About The Author

JJ Lee

JJ Lee edited the nonfiction “Christmas Blues” anthologies: Better Next Year, Upon A Midnight Clear, and Better This Year. He is also the author of The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction, the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction, and the 2012 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

As a magazine feature and essay writer, his pieces have appeared in print and online in Canadian Architect, C Magazine, Parachute, Border Crossings, The Georgia Straight, Vancouver Magazine, Flare, Fashion, Maclean’s, Nuvo, and Montecristo. He received a Gold Award for Best Short Feature from the National Magazine Awards for his essay “ELLE First: You Are Beautiful.”

He has also juried the Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize at the BC Book Prizes, the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction, and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize. He lives in New Westminster, BC.