Paul Butler is the author of ten novels and one non-fiction book. His most recent novel, Mina’s Child, was published in 2020 by Inanna Publications (Toronto). Mina’s Child imagines a second generation springing from the ‘heroes’ of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and questions the notion of a foreign evil and a woman’s demon sexuality. The Widow’s Fire (published by Inanna in 2017) explores the shadow side of Jane Austen’s final novel Persuasion, disrupting its happy ending and throwing moral certainties off balance. In 2023 Engen Books will Publish The Governor’s Rapture which is set in St. John’s during the infamous Winter of the Rals 1817-18 when failure of the fishery, a frozen harbour, and repeated arson and looting threatened the existence of the city.

Previous works have appeared on the judges’ lists of Canada Reads, the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards shortlists, and he was on the Relit Longlist for three consecutive years. Between 2003 and 2008 he won in the annual Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards four times and was subsequently invited to be first literary representative and then chair of the Arts and Letters committee. He has written for Canada’s newspaper of record The Globe and Mail (multiple book reviews), Canadian Geographic, and Canada’s History (formerly The Beaver) A professional screenwriting graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, he has lived in the UK, Greece and Canada and presently works as a writing coach and editor in Lethbridge, Alberta. He is a dual Canadian and UK citizen. His blog is www.paulbutlernovelist.wordpress.com