- Publications -
Flicker
University of Calgary Press Brave & Brilliant Series, 2023
Selected for the 2023 CBC Books Fall Fiction List; finalist for the 2024 Douglas Barbour Award for Speculative Fiction.
Cass Reisender doesn’t enjoy her psychic abilities. They appeared after her parents were killed in a tragic accident and led her to Madame Freyja, a travelling fortune teller and all-round terrible person. Swearing to leave both her psychic sensitivity and Madame Freyja behind, Cass starts again in Calgary, Alberta, a city with nothing supernatural about it at all. Then Cass touches a strange antique device and her new life is blown apart.
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Transported to West Orange, New Jersey, in the year 1900, Cass meets the dashing Erik Thorvaldsen in Thomas Edison’s – that Thomas Edison’s – laboratory. As she and Erik grow closer, Cass finally accepts herself as she finds love in a life lived across centuries. Yet Madame Freyja lurks in the shadows, hungry for the power of the time travel device. When Madame Freyja strikes, Cass must face both her fears and her past or lose her connection to Erik forever.
​
Flicker is a playful, fast-paced romp through the golden age of invention, mythology, and the supernatural. This is a novel for everyone who believes in the power of scientific curiosity and the strength of the human heart.
Press for Flicker
CKUA Radio Interview with Tony King, Sept. 6, 2023
Calgary Herald Interview with Eric Volmers, Oct. 21, 2023
Ottawa Review of Books review by Jerry Levy, Nov. 2023
thecommentary.ca podcast interview with Joe Planta, Dec. 4, 2023
Talking Books and Stuff podcast interview with Dennis Rimmer, Jan. 4, 2024
CJSW Radio Writers Block Interview with Jeanne Kwong, Feb. 21, 2024
Miramichi Reader Review by Carrie Stanton, Mar. 21, 2024
"Lori Hahnel seduces the reader with a magical, charming tale of a woman's foray into the past. Flicker is a delightfully compelling read."
—Jerry Levy, author of The Quantum Theory of Love and Madness
"Mysticism and science combine to power Hahnel's time-travel tale and give it a delightful twist. She brings alive a unique time and place, and creates an obsessed heroine you can't help but root for."
—Karen Bass, author of the time-travel adventure Two Times a Traitor
"A riveting time-travel tale with a feminist twist, Flicker explores love, loss, science and the supernatural with curiosity and conviction... Seductive, wistful, electric."
—Ali Bryan, author of Coq and The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships
Vermin: Stories
Enfield & Wizenty, 2020
The stories in Vermin: Stories span from the 1840s to present, and are linked by themes of loss, longing and music: a restaurant server in a Tofino restaurant reflects on the nature of men in her past and present; a woman prepares to marry a brooding artist unpopular with both her parents and her small town community; a new homeowner has strange encounters with a previous owner struggling to let go. Stories in this collection have appeared in Joyland, The Saturday Evening Post, Room, The Antigonish Review and other journals and anthologies.
“These are touching, gentle stories about the lives of women and girls who aren't lucky in their beginnings or backgrounds, nor particularly wise, and yet, their stories, with their rare and tiny triumphs, resonate.”
— Sharon Butala, author of Season of Fury and Wonder
"In these stories, Lori Hahnel reimagines the subject of love... Writing with classical dispassion, she doesn't moralize, disapprove or romanticize. Instead, she sees and selects and exposes the wilderness of the human heart."
— Cecelia Frey, author of Lovers Fall Back To Earth and recipient of the Golden Pen Lifetime Achievement Award
"Vermin is a treasure from one of Alberta's bright lights."
— Angie Abdou, author of Home Ice: Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey Mom
After You've Gone
Thistledown Press, 2014
In 1935 Regina, Lita, a young woman of gypsy ancestry, develops a passion for playing the guitar. After joining a jazz combo she quickly begins a life she couldn’t have imagined. In 1983, Lita’s granddaughter Elsa has become the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the Regina punk band Speed Queen. Together with her punk rock husband and their new baby, they head to Seattle in a move that brings about unexpected personal changes. Though fifty years exist between grandmother and granddaughter, their circumstances and experiences reflect the daunting risks of a musician’s life where the pain of rejection, betrayal, and heartache must be managed alongside the responsibility of personal and professional commitments.
“Everyone wants a grandmother like Lita, the young woman whose talents will surface in the next generation, the old crone you can go to, to affirm yourself. As she frets the muse of her loves, the greatest being her National guitar, you want to be carried on her chords into the past that strums the music like you’ve never quite heard before. Lori Hahnel has a similar gift to Lita’s; she knows how to turn nostalgia into unforgettable melody.”
— Vivian Hansen, author of A Bitter Mood of Clouds and Leylines of My Flesh
“This is what makes After You’ve Gone so engaging. I felt connected to these women, as though I’d had intimate conversations with them both, and at the end of the book I was sad to leave them behind.”
— Alberta Views Magazine
"After You've Gone vibrates with authenticity: two eras, two young women caught up in the giddy thrall of love and music and feckless men."
— Lee Kvern, author of The Matter of Sylvie and Seven Ways to Sunday
Nothing Sacred
Thistledown Press, 2009
Through tragically satirical stories, author Lori Hahnel tears down everything that western iconoclasm has set up as hallowed: romantic relationships, the fate of good people, the happy ending. In Nothing Sacred, women encounter violence, depression, and heartbreak, but they persevere to tailor new lives from what remains after the dust settles. Striking friction between the sentimental values of bygone Hollywood flicks and the misgivings of lower class life in western Canada, these stories provoke the everyday where working in retail or having a motel romance is as good as it gets. This collection leaves nothing untouched, nothing sacred.
“Hahnel’s short stories bestow depth and grace on characters that on the outside might seem mired in mundanity. The repercussions of our obsessions – whether they be things, relationships or events – are captured vividly in this intimate and surprising collection.”
— Alberta Views
”Lori Hahnel’s Nothing Sacred offers a wide variety of topics and people, and each is appealing in its delivery — something like a good song.”
— Prairie Fire
"Love this short story collection. Lori's writing is full of heart and wit."
— Robin van Eck, author of Rough
Love Minus Zero
Oberon Press, 2008
Love Minus Zero is a novel set in Calgary’s 1979 punk scene. It deals with a teenager’s obsession with music, a singer and her own band, ending with her growing disillusionment with the underground scene to which she belongs. Lori Hahnel was herself a founding member of the Virgins, Calgary’s first all-female rock band, so the story is told with all the freshness and immediacy of first-hand experience.
“The narrative is deft, the ambience bristling with authenticity…the writing surefooted and the characters vividly evoked.”
— The Globe and Mail
“Hahnel’s unflinching portrait of a young woman awkwardly negotiating a path through a world that shows her little mercy is truly riveting.”
— The Fiddlehead
"This book is one I won't soon forget! An awesome love story, an insider's look at the emerging punk scene in the '70s and 80s, and a realistic peek into one woman's life. Loved it."
— Carrie Mumford, author of All But What's Left
- Anthologies -
"Dearest Clara" in the Hingston & Olsen 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar.
Excerpt from novel-in-progress “Dearest Clara” in Made by History: An Anthology of Historical Fiction (Copperfield Press, 2022).
"Modern Times," creative nonfiction in 40 Below: Alberta’s Winter Anthology, Volume 2 (Wufniks Press, 2015).
"Only Known Photograph of Chopin, 1849," short story in Freshwater Pearls: Thirty Years of Inspiring Writers (Recliner Books, 2011).
"Nothing Sacred," short story in Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005).
"The Pass," short story in Alberta Anthology: The Best of CBC’s Alberta Anthology for 2005 (Red Deer Press).
- Paper Periodical Publications -
"A Good Long Life," Room 42.2, Spring 2019.
"The Quality of Mercy," New Forum, Summer 2019.
"The Unchanging Sea," The Antigonish Review, No. 176, Winter 2014.
"Dominion," FreeFall, Winter 2014.
"Good Friday, at the Westward," The Prairie Journal, No. 58, Fall 2012.
"Called Home," The Gauntlet Creative Writing Supplement 2012, February 16, 2012.
Excerpt from Love Minus Zero, The Fiddlehead 240, Summer 2009.
"Blue Lake," The Antigonish Review, Number 157, Spring 2009.
"Close to the Bone," Room 31.2, Summer 2008.
"Art is Long," The Fiddlehead 235, Spring 2008.
"I Shall Return," Humanist Perspectives, Winter 2007 / 08.
"Leading Men," Prairie Fire, Autumn 2007, nominated for National Magazine Award, The Journey Prize and Western Magazine Award.
"Across the Universe," Transition, Fall 2007.
"Hamburg Blues," reprinted in Rags VII: Southern Alberta’s Creative Writing Journal, Fall 2006.
"Hamburg Blues," Transition, Fall 2006.
"Fiction Romance," The Nashwaak Review, Spring / Summer 2006.
"The Pass," winner, professional category, CBC Radio’s Alberta Anthology competition; broadcast June 2006, and included in the collection The Best of Alberta Anthology 2005 (Red Deer Press), November 2005.
"The Selfish Professor," The Prairie Journal, No. 45, Fall 2005 / Winter 2006, nominated for the Journey Prize and National Magazine Award (Humour).
"Nothing Sacred," in the anthology Red Light: Superheroes, Saints and Sluts (Arsenal Pulp Press), October 2005.
"We Had Faces Then," published in The Wingham Advance-Times as second-place winner in the Alice Munro Festival of Writing Contest, July 9, 2005.
"Vale Avenue," FreeFall, Fall 2004.
"Nothing Sacred," FreeFall, Spring 2004; won honourable mention in their 2003 fiction contest.
"Beware of God," Plum Ruby Review, February / March 2004.
"Maple Leaf Rag," lichen literary journal, Spring 2003.
"Sisters of Mercy," Forum, Winter 2002.
- Writing on the Web -
“The Hardest Part,” in Agnes and True, October 2019.
“Glory B,” The Black Dog Review, June 2018.
“In a Mist,” short story in Historical Feathers, Jan. 2018.
“Del,” The Manawaker Studios Flash Fiction Podcast, Aug. 2017.
“Awkward Positions,” short story in The Bloody Key Society Periodical, Feb. 2017.
“The Ladies’ Love Oracle,” Verbatim Poetry, June 17, 2016.
“Capa Roja,” Eleventh Transmission, February 2015.
“I Saw You,” Phoenix Photo and Fiction, Dec. 2014.
Excerpt from After You’ve Gone, Wax Poetry and Art Magazine, No. 6, Sept. 2014.
“No One to Love,” short story in The Copperfield Review, November 2014.
“Nurse Ingrid,” short story in The Saturday Evening Post, November 21, 2014.
“Ask Your Mom,” short story in The Danforth Review, September 2013.
“Beware of God,” short story in The Plum Ruby Review, February / March 2004.
- Reviews / Nonfiction -
"Writing in the Time of Coronavirus" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, July – Sept. 2020.
"On Teaching the Fiery Craft" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, July – Sept. 2019.
"Modern Times" in 40 Below: Alberta’s Winter Anthology (Wufniks Press), Edmonton, AB, Oct. 2015, p. 93 – 100.
"The Mysterious Query Letter" in AWCS Write Now, Sept. 2015.
"A Field Guide to Rejection" in Blood on the Floor: Writers on Rejection (Cairn Press), Tucson, AZ, Dec. 2014, p. 66- 68.
Review of Hellgoing: Stories by Lynn Coady, Alberta Views, Dec. 2013.
Review of Calgary Public Library: Inspiring Life Stories Since 1912 by Brian Brennan, Alberta Views, Nov. 2012.
Review of What Echo Heard by Gordon Sombrowski, Alberta Views, April 2012.
"The Only Thing to Fear" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, March / April 2012.
"We All Shine On: What I Learned From John Lennon" in FreeFall, Winter 2012.
"Living the Dream – Almost" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, January / February 2012.
"Are You Still Trying to Write?: Why W-i-R Programs Matter" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, January / February 2010.
The Branch Line, reviews 2004 – present.
"A Field Guide to Rejection" in WestWord: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of Alberta, May / June 2003.
The Danforth Review, reviews 2001 – 2003.
Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, review of Magic Eight Ball by Marion Douglas 2001.
Paragraph: The Review of Canadian Fiction, reviews 1994 – 1999.
Filling Station, reviews 1996.
Home Movies, reviews 1996.
Books in Canada, reviews 1996.
Small Press Review, reviews 1995.
Canadian Author, reviews 1994 – 1999.
"Rain in December" in The Amethyst Review, Spring 2001, nominated for the Journey Prize.
"You Tore Me Down," reprinted in Tickled by Thunder, Spring 2001 and in their 2001 Best Fiction Anthology.
- Poetry -
"The Ladies’ Love Oracle," found poem in Verbatim Poetry, June 17, 2016.
"Nose Hill Concerto," published May 2013 as part of the RE: act Project by House of Blue Skies Poetry; also included in The Calgary Project – A City Map in Verse and Visual (Frontenac House, 2014).
"Jam," The Legendary, Sept. 2012.
"Blood Eagle," Poetry Quarterly Magazine, Winter / Summer 2012.