October 28, 2025

Reading Habits

Saturday happiness is plenty of books coverage in my Toronto Star, and even happier happiness is my own book (WHAT??) mentioned in formidable company—along with 12 copies of the Bible and Archie comics!—as Ann Y.K. Choi shares her reading habits and celebrates the release of her new novel, ALL THINGS UNDER THE MOON. Thanks to Ann for saying lovely things about ASKING FOR A FRIEND and including it in your round-up. And if you know Ann, you’ll know that this kindness and generosity is most characteristic. I’m so looking forward to reading her book!

Read the whole piece here (gift link).

February 4, 2025

Talking Politics

I’m so proud to have published these two unabashedly political novels, grateful for every instance in which those novels have been received in that context, and still a little bit disappointed that it hasn’t happened more often, because making these issues and ideas—about consent, and power, and reproductive rights—accessible to readers was huge part of why I wrote these books in the first place. It’s disappointing to me that “politics” is so often seen as siloed, male, serious and tidy, dry and impersonal, detached from our bodies, our families, the hamster wheels of our everyday lives.

At this moment where politics as usual has seemingly jumped the shark, however, I feel heartened by two really beautiful instances of these novels entering the discourse. On the January 28 episode of the Aborsh podcast, Elizabeth Renzetti (whose new book WHAT SHE SAID: is essential reading) mentions ASKING FOR A FRIEND as an example of positive abortion representation in media (along with SEX AND THE CITY!): “[The book] starts with an abortion and it’s about how that abortion shapes, the friendship between the two protagonists. And it’s just a really interesting way of looking at how abortion brings the two women together and becomes a shared experience.”

And WAITING FOR A STAR TO FALL will be the BEYOND A BALLOT Book Club pick for February 27, which I’m really looking forward to. BEYOND A BALLOT, whose mission is to get more Canadian women interested in politics, brings together really interested group of politically-minded thinkers, and I hope that my novel makes for fruitful discussion and meaningful questions (which are always more important than having the answers).

September 23, 2024

AFAF in the Fall

“It was three o’clock in the morning, the two of them the only ones still awake, still buzzing after a night of drinking and fun. Their apartment had been full of people that night, still scattered throughout. It was near the beginning of their final year at school, it felt like they were at the centre of the world, sitting on Clara’s windowsill, dizzy and overlooking the rooftops. They’d been singing “Landslide” at the top of their lungs until someone from a neighbouring building had screamed out of the window for them to shut up.

Jess was smoking, which was mostly an affectation, but Clara didn’t call her on it because friends forgave each other these things, the same way Jess never said a word when Clara sang the wrong words to the songs on the CDs they played in the kitchen: ‘We sit here in our store and drink some toast…”

A book for all seasons! Have you picked up ASKING FOR A FRIEND yet?

June 21, 2024

What a Gathering!

Wednesday night was ✨✨MAGIC✨✨ Thank you to The Gather Society for making ASKING FOR A FRIEND part of your beautiful event at The Daughter Wine Bar that was all about nurturing women’s connections. I had the pleasure of saying a few words at the mic and mentioned all the connections that would be sparked during the evening, and also the fascinating hidden ways in which many of us were connected already—and during my book signing I got to discover a few of these, like Danielle from @thechefupstairs whose charity online cooking class was one of the highs of the pandemic lows for our family, and @stephstwist who it turns out is my neighbour and is opening her bakery just minutes from my house! (Plus my best friend of 30+ years was in attendance!) A whole bunch of brand new connections were fostered last night as well, and everyone went home with a copy of Jess and Clara’s story, which is all about the way events of a single evening can stitch two lives together. Erin, Emily and ESPECIALLY Kirsten @perfectlyimperfectsocial (who elevates to an art form being a human on the internet and whose support of my novel has been such a gift), once again, you made something extraordinary happen. I’m in awe, and so grateful.

May 6, 2024

A Novel for All Seasons—But Maybe Especially This One…

My third novel, Asking for a Friend, is also my first novel that’s set over a long span of time, and ever since it was published, I’ve been reflecting on its seasons. That summery book cover and that it was published on the cusp of fall, and that it opens in December with snow falling outside at the end of an academic term. How sad Jess was during that first February, when she (not unrelated) wouldn’t stop listening to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” on repeat. The changingness of March when Jess and Clara drag their mattresses outside and wake up dusted with snow, signs of spring ranging from crocuses to frat boys on St. George Street dragging their shitty leather couches outside to drink beer out of red plastic cups. And now that we’re long past crocuses and lilacs are coming into bloom here in downtown Toronto, I’m finally thinking about summer, and what a summer book this is, the rituals these friends return to over and over as the years change everything, and bring them together, push them apart, and back again. That first summer after university when they discover that they both have an affinity for swimming after four years spent in a city that’s easy to forget is on a lake. When Clara returns from abroad and both their lives have changed so changed so much, each with so much to prove to the other, as demonstrated by their eventual blow-up on a weekend getaway. And then the final summer scene, two friends floating, finally, easy together after so many years of pushing against the currents and tides in an effort to become themselves, which is what it feels like to me with my friends in our forties. How I love that scene, and this entire book, and I’m excited to think of readers who’ll be reading it on the dock.

March 21, 2024

The Books Themselves

Last week marked seven years since the release of my first novel, an occasion I didn’t mark as in years past because I’m trying to be more honest and human about my publishing experiences (as opposed to, like, posting, say “WOO HOO BIG BOOK TOUR ENERGY!” posts when it’s just me eating crullers at a series of Tim Hortons across Southern Ontario).

I’ve been really lucky and privileged to have published three novels in total, but it’s never been like how I thought it would be, I’ve never received the validation that my books are real, that I’m legit. I’ve never made a major bestseller list, I’ve never had any of my books nominated for an award, let alone won one. In many ways, trying to pass in the world as a bonafied author has felt more like a series of embarrassments and humiliations that anything else, and I know I’m not alone in this, it’s just too mortifying for most people to say it out loud (and everybody else is John Grisham).

It helps a lot, however, to divorce my books from the idea that they exist to solidify my identity as an author and my sense of self-worth, to look elsewhere for the latter, to freaking get over myself in regards to the former (I think about Annie Dillard’s line, “…he himself likes only the role, the thought of himself in a hat…”)

To think of the fact of these books in themselves, as singular creations rather than as extensions of me. To consider how true I was able to be to my vision for all three of them, how I’m able to open any one of them at any page and start reading, and think, “This is a book I’d like to read.” How proud I am of the secret subversion in each of these stories, the poignancy, the humour, and how they lift up, complicate, and celebrate women’s lives and women’s stories.

Here are, at least, three parts of my author life of which I wouldn’t change a single thing.

February 20, 2024

SUNSHINE

Once a year, I get stabbed in the neck for a needle biopsy at Mt. Sinai Hospital, and then reward myself with some new book purchases at the Indigo Spirit bookstore downstairs. They also had ASKING FOR A FRIEND in stock, and so I was bringing that copy to the cash with the books I was buying, and Radiant Human/Expert Bookseller Lisa spied my book’s cover on the top of my stack. “OH MY GOD, KERRY CLARE!,” she exclaimed, which I just think is absolutely the best way to overhear people talking about you when they think you’re not present. I probably should have pleaded ignorant, and said, “Oh, hey, rave a little more about this author, why don’t you,” but instead I told her that this was my book, and I wanted to sign it, and she was super excited because she’d been the one to order my book—as well as the Claire Keegan short story collection I was buying, and so she is CLEARLY a woman of exquisite literary taste. It was truly the nicest bookstore encounter, and turned my day—which began with box breathing on the subway and a neck biopsy—into SUNSHINE. She is very very excited to hear when my next book is coming out. LISA!! What a gem.

February 2, 2024

Two New Reviews!

• “I don’t know how to counter-sink a screw, but I like the term, and I enjoy the technical abilities of writers who routinely pull off good prose. Kerry Clare does throughout, and she’s particularly good at writing dialogue. Her characters come across as real people, not puppets, and they sound different from each other. That’s always important, but particularly so when the book is tightly focused on two friends.” New review from Lesley Krueger
• Some people may walk away thinking that Asking for a Friend was written specifically for them – it is that authentic. It felt that way to me. Even though it covers decades, you never feel like Clare is speeding through the story.  It is a well written book about a complicated friendship that is hard to let go of and it will one day make a great movie. New review from DIVINE
• Don’t miss the ASKING FOR A FRIEND book club kit!

December 12, 2023

AFAF Giveaway!

AFAFanovel week continues with a #giveaway that’s TOTEally awesome.

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care…along with a cute bookish tote bag from @esquared.designs!

For a chance to win that bag, with a signed copy of ASKING FOR A FRIEND tucked inside, leave a comment and tell me what book you’re looking forward to cozying up with over the holidays…. 🇨🇦🇺🇸addresses only. Good luck!

December 11, 2023

AFAF on the Red Fern Book Review Podcast!

Welcome to #AFAFanovel WEEK, five whole days of fun new things to share—including a very cool giveaway coming tomorrow! Stay tuned… But TODAY I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Amy Mair on the wonderful @redfernbookreview podcast, in which I talk about my novel, slander #CanLit, and recommend five very good books for the readers on your holiday gift list. Thank you, Amy, for having me! (And if I had been cognizant that you were recording video, I probably wouldn’t have chosen my children’s bedroom as our recording studio. Apologies!) Listen on Apple Podcasts (and you can find our conversation on Spotify and Youtube too!).