Emily R. Austin Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Emily Austin is a literary fiction novelist who is best known for her debut work of fiction “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.”

The author was born in the Canadian town of St.Thomas Ontario and spent much of her childhood in Southwestern Ontario, a few miles from Michigan across the border.
Her Mother was a teacher at a Catholic school while her father was a teacher in a public school and as such, she was brought up a Catholic.

When she was older, she went to Western University to study Information and Library Science and to King’s University College to study Religious Studies and English Literature.

Afterward, the Canada Council for the Arts gave Emily two writing grants. She would then work at the Western University-based and LGBTQ-focused Library named the Pride Library, in addition to a small elementary school library.
Her second novel “Interesting Facts about Space” was published in 2024.

Upon the publishing of her debut work of fiction, it made the longlist for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humor, was an Ottawa Book Awards finalist, and made the shortlist for the Amazon First Novel Award.
Austin currently makes her home in Ottawa and is represented by The Friedrich Agency’s Heather Carr.

Austin first knew she wanted to become an author when she was just thirteen when the class was given a short story assignment by the high school English teacher.

Prior to joining high school, she was very poor in English since she had a learning disability that she believed was dyslexia. Due to that, she was one of the worst performers in English at her school in her earlier years.
As such, it was a great surprise when she scored an A+ on a story she penned while she was thirteen. She loves to say that her teacher moved her to the university track of English from the college track she was on.
She entered her into a contest and she went on to win first place which came with a fancy plaque.

While it was her high school teacher who had the biggest influence in making her into the writer she is today, she has also been influenced by books she has read over the years.
One of the novels that made her feel like she was worth something was when she read “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath.

It was from reading the work that she realized that some of the things she believed were personality traits were indicators of mental illness due to being queer.

Emily R. Austin’s work “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead” is a fun novel that tells the story of a young and very anxious woman.

She had found a new job working reception at a catholic church but then starts obsessing over the mysterious death of her predecessor.

Gilda is a twenty-seven-year-old atheist and lesbian with a love for animals. Lately, she has been so depressed that she just piles dirty dishes in her sink and does not even shower, even forgetting to go to work that she gets fired.
All she can think about is death as she cannot think of any good reason to continue living. She cannot even pretend to care for anything and longs for the day she will be dead so that she can be eaten by maggots.

One day, she decides to pop into a Catholic church for therapy only to find herself accidentally offered a job. She is a liar, lesbian, and atheist who now needs to pretend that she is Catholic and not gay and that she is a qualified receptionist.
She finds it odd that her predecessor was an old lady who might have been murdered and it is not long before she develops an obsession with her and how she died.

Emily R. Austin’s “Interesting Facts About Space” is a hilarious, fast-paced, and ultimately hope-filled work from the bestselling author of “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.”

The lead in the novel is a space-obsessed woman named Enid who knows all there is to know about black holes and how they can make anything and anyone into spaghetti if you dare play with them.
Whenever she is not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts, she can be found on the dating apps finding a rotation of women to date.

In the meantime, she has been working hard to establish some relationships with her half-sisters who she has been estranged from following the death of her father who had been absent for most of her life.
When she unexpectedly finds herself in her first serious romantic affair, it is soured by a suspicion that someone is stalking her. With her paranoia spiraling out of control, she has to deal with a feeling that there is something very wrong with her.
Full of heart, charm, and quirky humor, it is a work that shows the power of revealing secret parts of us no matter how shameful as these can be the most beautiful.

“Oh Honey,” by Emily R. Austin is a dark and sometimes laugh-out-loud short story.
The work tells the story of a drug-popping telemarketer named Jane who had been arrested for possession and now has regular meetings with her parole officer after she was let out on probation.

She is an expert at pushing people’s buttons particularly when it comes to one client, but suddenly she finds someone who is better at her own game, and the roles are reversed.

Jane is an unreliable storyteller who is also a sarcastic and witty spinmaster. Every time she makes her calls, she takes the identity of someone else such as Pocahontas, Ariel, or Belle.

But she is living life on the edge as she is a cutter on lithium and constantly has suicidal thoughts as she was brought up by a neglectful and abusive mother with whom she lived in deep poverty.

Central to Janes’s life are Frank, Ivy, and Keat, Frank is a thieving and pen-coveting artist, Keats is Jane’s roommate and a conspiracist whole Ivy is Keat’s very talkative girlfriend.
While they are unpredictable and very simple, they may just be her salvation.
It is a work that provides a glimpse into a young woman’s struggle with drug abuse and bipolar disorder.