Frontenac House Press has published a gorgeous reissue of Bruce Hunter’s award-winning novel of love, disability, and wildness, In the Bear’s House (May 23, 2025.)

Set in 1960s Calgary and Alberta ‘s backcountry, this reissue of In the Bear’s House tells the story of a creative young mother, Clare Dunlop, raising her deaf son against the insurmountable odds of poverty, mental illness and hardship. In the Bear’s House is ultimately about listening to the wild and the wilderness, and what we lose when it’s gone.

We are honoured to have Bruce join us to answer a question about the rebirth of his much-loved story.

*Nella casa dell’orso* by Bruce Hunter, translated by Andrea Sirotti, published by iQdB eidizioni.

Q: What has it been like to reissue In the Bear’s House and have it translated?

A: As a mature writer on the eve of his 73rd birthday on May 21, I’m gobsmacked to have in my hands an Italian translation by iQdB eidizioni, and a sparkling new edition by Calgary’s Frontenac House. What a validation of my life’s work. Which I hope is an inspiration to all writers, young and old. To borrow a baseball metaphor, it’s all about staying in the game, whether you strike out or not, and keep getting up to bat.

Both publishers lavished such love on their books, inside and out. Both books radiate that level of professionalism and care.

I first published In the Bear’s House in 2009. It sold well and won an award at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival where it was deemed a mountain classic. But the publisher disappeared as did my edited galleys. I gave up all hope of ever seeing it in print again. Then my neighbor, the gifted poet and editor, Elana Wolff read It. It speaks to our times, she said. You must get it out there.

A cousin in IT scanned the hard copy and created a new submissible file. I showed it to the brilliant editor Micheline Maylor-Kovitz at Frontenac House in Calgary who took it to her bosses. There, Micheline, Terry Davies, and Neil Pretunia helped me take In the Bear’s House to a whole new level.

In the meantime, my Italian publisher brought out a translation as Nella casa dell’orso (literally, ln the House of the Bear). In April, I did a four-city tour to Lecce, Copertino, Florence, and Trieste, where the audiences’ enthusiastic response showed the story of a creative young mother and her deafened son in 1960s Alberta transcends time, language, and culture.

I look forward to the Calgary launch on May 23. What a birthday gift. From the bottom of my mended heart, gratitude to every one of you who got me here.

About Bruce Hunter:

Bruce Hunter is a writer, editor, speaker, and mentor. In 2024, his novel, Nella casa dell’orso, was published in Italy by iQdB edizioni. In 2023, his poetry collection, Galestro, was published in Italy, following the release there in 2022 of A Life in Poetry, Poesie scelteda Two O’clock Creek, also by iQdB edizioni. 1n 2021, his memoir essay, “This is the Place I Come to in My Dreams” was shortlisted for the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Awards. In 2024, his long poem “Dark Water” from Galestro won Gold for poetry for the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Awards. And he is a proud new grandfather of Alice, Julian and Lucas.

Born in Calgary, Alberta, Bruce was deafened as an infant and afflicted with low vision much of his adult life. He grew up in the working-class neighbourhood of Ogden in the shadow of Esso’s Imperial Oil Refinery and now decommissioned Canadian Pacific Railway’s Ogden Shops. Calgary is located on Treaty Seven lands, in the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the îethka Nakoda Nations (Chiniki, Bearspaw, Goodstoney), the Otipemisiwak Métis Government (Districts 5 and 6).

In his early teens Bruce discovered writing, for there he could hear everything – and be heard. After high school, he worked for ten years as a labourer, equipment operator, Zamboni driver, and completed his technical education and apprenticeship as a gardener and arborist. In his late twenties, his published poetry won him a scholarship to the Banff School of Fine Arts to study with novelist W.O. Mitchell and poet Irving Layton. From there he went onto York University to study film and literature and taught in the creative writing department before landing a position at Seneca College.

His poetry, fiction, reviews, interviews, and creative nonfiction have appeared in over 90 blogs, journals and anthologies internationally in Italy, Canada, China, India, Romania, the U.K. and the U.S.

Bruce has authored seven poetry books, as well as the best-selling CBC Radio-produced 1996 short story collection, Country Music Country (the third edition, the Reboot appeared in 2018).

In 2009, In the Bear’s House, won the Canadian Rockies Prize at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival. In 2010, his book Two O’clock Creek – poems new and selected, won the Acorn-Plantos Peoples’ Poetry Award for Canada.

Bruce was the 2017 Author in Residence for Calgary Public Library. His past residencies include the Banff Centre, Deaf and Hear Alberta, Richmond Hill Public Library, University of Toronto, Mount Royal University, and many others across Canada.

Bruce is an associate member of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers, a full member of the Canadian Authors Association, a life member of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (C.H.H.A.), and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (C.N.I.B.), as well as long-time member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Writers’ Union of Canada, and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. For more than three decades, Bruce has championed accessibility for those with vision and hearing loss.