"Lori Hahnel's stories unravel seductive lines of pretzel logic, revealing bright new planets of mischief and music and mystery...a sly balancing act of yearning and humour, night cool and power pop, regret and miscreant wit." -- Mark Anthony Jarman
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"Vermin is a treasure from one of Alberta's bright lights." -- Angie Abdou
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Flicker (University of Calgary Press Brave & Brilliant Series, 2023), Lori Hahnel’s latest novel, was a finalist for the Douglas Barbour Award for Speculative Fiction.​Vermin: Stories won the 2022 Alberta Literary Award for Short Story Collection, and was a finalist for a High Plains Book Award, the CAA Fred Kerner Award and the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts Glengarry Book Award. Lori is also the author of the novels Love Minus Zero and After You’ve Gone, and the story collection, Nothing Sacred,which shortlisted for an Alberta Literary Award. Her work has been broadcast on CBC Radio, and has appeared in over fifty journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, Australia and the UK including The Fiddlehead, Joyland, and The Saturday Evening Post. She is currently at work on a novel based on the life of pianist and composer Clara Schumann.
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Lori writes fiction about love, loss, longing, music, history, and the lives of women. Her first novel was loosely based on the formative experience in her teen years of playing in Calgary band The Virgins, in the context of the male-dominated world of 1980’s punk music. She is fascinated by outsiders, misfits, the strange, and the forgotten.​
In 2020, Lori served as Calgary Public Library’s Author-in-Residence. She has taught creative writing at Mount Royal University and the Alexandra Writers’ Centre. She has also acted as a mentor through the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Writers’ Guild of Alberta and AWCS.​
Photo credit: Monique de St-Croix, Hip Image Photography