You're invited to the book launch for We Were the Bullfighters by Marianne K. Miller

Hi, Brian.

Only two months until publication!! 

Hope you'll come to my book launch – everyone’s invited!

June 12, 2024
Massey College,
University of Toronto (Map here)
5:30-7:30 p.m.

Yours,

Marianne

P.S. I’m told pre-orders are very important. So please, order your copy now.

We Were the Bullfighters
by Marianne K. Miller

Sent to cover bank robber Red Ryan’s daring prison break, a young Ernest Hemingway becomes fascinated with the convict.

In 1923, Ernest Hemingway, struggling with the responsibilities of marriage and unexpected fatherhood, has just made a big mistake. He decided that for the baby’s first year he would interrupt his fledgling writing career in Paris and move his family to North America. No longer a freelancer, he now has a gruelling job with a difficult boss, as a staff reporter for the Toronto Daily Star. On his first day, already feeling hemmed in by circumstances, he’s sent to cover a prison break at Kingston Pen.

The escaped convicts, led by notorious bank robber Norman “Red” Ryan, are on the run, making their way from the bush north of Kingston, to the streets of Toronto, and then through towns and cities across the United States. Their crimes become more brazen, their lifestyle increasingly glamorous. Growing more and more preoccupied with Ryan and his willingness to risk everything to be free, Hemingway ponders duty, freedom, and what stops a man from pursuing his dreams.

Available for pre-order from Chapters / Indigo here. Or order from your local bookstore (here).

Note: If you’re interested in getting published, come to our in-person “How to Get Published” workshop, May 11,  in Niagara on the Lake. Learn how it all works and get some help with your query letter. Details here.

What People Are Saying...

Marianne

Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife: 

“In her debut novel, Marianne K. Miller renders a little-explored time in Hemingway’s life with the accurate eye of the Hemingway scholar she happens to be, but also with boldness and keen imagination. I turned every page of We Were the Bullfighters with great pleasure and admiration.”

 Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of Wait Softly Brother:

“Intriguing. Hardboiled. Cinematic. We Were the Bullfighters is a truly fine romp of a novel!”

 Lee Gowan, author of The Beautiful Place:

“A window into Canada's role in the making of Ernest Hemingway in clear, clean prose.”        

Kim Echlin, author of Speak, Silence:

“In this wonderful story, the young Ernest Hemingway is a Toronto Daily Star reporter who feels a strange connection to legendary bank robber, Red Ryan. Miller’s expertise on Hemingway and her penetrating observations about our responsibilities to our talents makes this a must-read historical fiction in which “artists are like convicts” and people choose what they will sacrifice for freedom.”

J.R. McConvey, author of Different Beasts:            

“Marianne Miller brings a deceptively light touch to this evocative and finely researched story of a colourful moment in the life of a burgeoning literary giant. With efficient language that Hemingway would have liked, she gives us a rollicking tale of escaped convicts on the run from Kingston Pen, and the young Toronto crime reporter in pursuit of a story and a literary path. We Were the Bullfighters wonderfully captures the character of Hemingway and the atmosphere of Toronto in the 1920s.” 

Barbara Fradkin, author of the Inspector Green and Amanda Doucette mysteries:

“Skillfully capturing the wild, rum-running 1920s, Marianne Miller creates a fascinating, fictionalized tale of two men fighting to break free; one a young Hemingway dreaming of his first great novel and the other, a daring bank robber on the run from Kingston Penitentiary.”

Note: For information about submitting to Dundurn Press (Marianne’s publisher), see here.

See our upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day writing retreats here. 

See other new books and invitations to book launches from your fellow authors here (and scroll down).