Michael Crummey Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Poetry Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Michael Crummey is a Canadian bestselling author and poet. He was born in the mining town of Buchans in the wildlands of Newfoundland. He grew up in a mining town named Wabush, Labrador near the border with Quebec. The author was the second born among four siblings born to Mazie and Arthur.

In his teenage years, he got his English bachelor’s degree and graduated from Memorial University in St. Johns in 1987. Crummey then moved to Ontario where he lived in Kingston as he attended Queen’s University for graduate studies.

He never completed his doctoral program as he dropped out in 1989 intending to pursue other interests. In 1991, he moved to China where he taught English as a second language for about six months. He moved back to Kingston thereafter and has been living there ever since.
Over the years, he has worked many jobs including with the John Howard Society where he was an institutional counselor. He has been a bottle washer and chief cook with the “International Day of Solidarity With the People of Guatemala” and has also volunteered with the “Ontario Public Interest Research Group-Kingston.”

As for how he got started writing, Michael Crummey has said that he began getting serious with his poetry writing while he was in his first year in college.

While his work then was terrible, he submitted some of it to Memorial University’s “Gregory J. Power Poetry Contest” and surprised himself when he won. He won $500 and became convinced that he could make a lot of money as a poet. In 1994, Michael was the winner of the national prize for “Writers Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry.”

It was in 1996 that Kingston’s Quarry Press published his first book of poetry. “Arguments with Gravity” would become the winner of the Labrador Book Award for poetry and the Writer’s Alliance of Newfoundland.

After publishing several collections of poetry, he tried his hand at fiction writing and was a runner-up to the Prism International Short Fiction Contest in 1994. Crummey has also published more than a dozen works of short fiction, some of which have been featured in the 1998 published “The Journey Prize Anthology.”

His collection of stories “Flesh and Blood” was also published in 1998 under Beach Holme Publishing.

Apart from his poetry and fiction works, Michael Crummey has been a creative writing professor and writer in residence at institutions across Canada. In 2007, he was honored with the Timothy Findley Award by the “Writer’s Trust of Canada,” which recognized his contribution to literature.

He loves to say that he is the only one in his family who is living in near poverty. His siblings have all chosen professional careers and are living comfortable lives while he toils in the mines of fiction writing and poetry. Nonetheless, he would never give up his writing for any other career in the world.

Crummey currently makes his home in Newfoundland’s St John’s, where he lives with his wife and three stepchildren.

Michael Crummey’s novel “The Innocents” opens with Evered and Ada two young orphans living in coastal Newfoundland that has to be one of the most inhospitable places in the world.

In the 1800s life is hard even for kids with parents and it is even harder without them. The kids had been taught nothing apart from how to survive and hence they eke a meager living as their minds and bodies grow, causing them consternation and confusion, which changes their relationship.

Muddling through the seasons and years of ravaging illness, storms, and meager catches, their loyalty to each other is what sustains and motivates them. However, as the seasons pass and they come to learn more about the mystery of their own nature, their loyalty may be tested even more.

“The Innocents” is a compulsively readable and richly imagined work, a riveting tale of survival and hardship, and a candid exploration of the bond between sister and brother.

“Sweetland” by Michael Crummey is a deeply suspenseful story of the struggles of a man against the ruins of memory and the forces of nature.

For generations, Newfoundland had a lot of fish only for the catch to go dry leaving the inhabitants destitute. Fast forward to the 21st century and the government informs them that they will be resettled and given a generous compensation package.

However, the catch is that everyone needs to leave as the government will not protect any coot who stays. Moses Cootland is the coot who stays behind driven by a sense of belonging and history and haunted by memories of how lonely he was in his youth far away from home.
He refuses to leave but ultimately he signs on to the plan as he cannot stand the violent opposition from friends and family. However, a tragic accident presents an opportunity to fake his own death and by doing so he can hide and remain on the island.
Sweetland soon finds himself living with the ghosts of former citizens of the island, even as he deals with the ravages of weather and a rapidly diminishing food supply.

Michael Crummey’s novel Galore is a work set in “Paradise Deep,” a remote coastal town.

When a whale beaches itself on the shores of the town, the residents never expect to find inside its body a man remarkably alive, silent, and reeking of fish. They name him Judah and his discovery gets the citizens looking for answers, as they try to find out if the man is a demon or miracle, a beast or man, a curse or blessing.

The man proves to be a shocking addition to “Paradise Deep,” which is a town full of unusual characters. The self-appointed patriarch is “King-me Seller” who has something against Devine’s Widow, an inscrutable woman with whom he has been feuding for decades.
Mary Tryphena her granddaughter was still a kid when Judah washed ashore but then finds herself linked to him in all manner of ways.

In this work, Michael Crummey imagines a world where the line between the otherworldly and the everyday is impossible to discern, as he tells a story of a saga between two families full of love and bitterness spanning centuries.