Congratulations on the publication of ART OF CAMOUFLAGE by Sara Power which was released on May 1st 2024 from Freehand Books!
A powerful debut about the lives of girls and women caught in the orbit of the military.
Female recruits weathering toxic masculine environments. Military wives stretched thin across countless military moves, new cities and new selves. Military kids whose mercurial friendships flare and fade to the rhythm of their parent’s career path. Throughout, this collection introduces us to characters who trespass beyond the boundaries of their own realities to discover who they are within someone else’s narrative.
Sara Power writes with insight and emotional precision about what it’s like to be unmoored. Art of Camouflage is memorable at every turn, full of characters whose deepest motivations we recognize intrinsically as our own.
Praise for ART OF CAMOUFLAGE:
“From military training and the camouflage that protects, to the masks we wear to conceal flaws even to ourselves, Sara Power comes out swinging with a gripping debut with characters caught between ache and outrage. A wildly imaginative and welcome new voice.” – Shelagh Rogers founding host and co-creator of The Next Chapter, CBC Radio
“Sara Power’s Art of Camouflage is full of complex characters who make costly miscalculations, and wear masks that reveal more than they hide. They endure and know when to quit; they’re vulnerable and tremble with rage; peacekeepers walking the tightrope of misogyny. Power’s prose is lightning quick, making the dark that follows illumination even darker. Shot through with brilliant images and an elegant fluidity, these stories are striking, subtle, and ultimately spectacular.” – Lisa Moore author of This Is How We Love and February
“In Art of Camouflage, Sara Power courageously depicts military life, yet there isn’t a single battlefield in these pages. Instead, Power invites us into the overlooked lives of military wives, discombobulated recruits, and children growing up on bases, for whom every home is temporary and every friendship destined to be severed. Fiercely intelligent, funny and tender, Art of Camouflage is a remarkable debut.” – Caroline Adderson author of A Russian Sister and Ellen in Pieces
“The women and girls in these stories, most of them connected to Canada’s military, are expected to camouflage their hurts and desires, but Sara Power makes them visible in a deft blend of humour and heartbreak. This collection, written in searing prose, shakes the reader like gunfire and stirs up memories with the assuredness of a mother’s embrace. It’s an exciting debut from a gifted storyteller.” – Zilla Jones
“In this exhilarating debut, Sara Power uses her considerable gifts to illuminate lives touched by the military. Touching, funny, and often absurd, each of these short stories contains a whole world.” – Alix Ohlin author of We Want What We Want and Dual Citizens
“Psychologically astute and imaginatively written, Art of Camouflage approaches life on the periphery of the military with ingenuity and emotional depth. With her gentle and resonant authorial voice, Sara Power guides us through the inner lives of characters who feel lost, adrift, and unmoored. These stories are vulnerable and tender, both unsettling and comforting in the same breath. This collection is about military life, but it’s also about how to go on when the tethers are cut, when you don’t know who you are or where you belong. Throughout each evocative story, Power’s characters struggle to find home within themselves in places far from home. A captivating read and a singular debut.” – Jaclyn Desforges author of Danger Flower
A former artillery officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, Sara Power has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the Royal Military College of Canada, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Sara’s writing has appeared in literary journals across Canada, the US, and the UK, including the anthology Best Canadian Stories 2024, edited by Lisa Moore. Her fiction has been awarded the Malahat Review Open Season Award, the Riddle Fence Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the Toronto Star Short Story Contest, the New Quarterly Peter Hinchcliff Award, the Bath Short Story Award, and the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award. Originally from Labrador, Sara now lives in Ottawa with her husband, three children, and hound dog. Art of Camouflage is her first book.
Sara is represented by Samantha Haywood.
Congratulations Sara!