Meet the Halifax author writing about queer joy

At first blush, it’d be easy to see K.R. Byggdin’s Wonder World as lifted-from-life, the sort of roman à clef that many debut authors write to make a splash: Like their protagonist, Isaac Funk, Byggdin relocated from small-town Manitoba to Halifax in search of queer community, and like Funk, Byggdin is part of the city’s creative scene. But Byggdin is quick to set the record straight, saying that their 2023 Atlantic Book Award-winning work is “definitely a novel, not a memoir.” They add: “I heard an interview once with Mary Walsh—y’know, the comedian from 22 Minutes—was talking about [how] everybody's got that first novel in them. It's often connected to where we grow up; the people and the places that we're so familiar with. And I think that was certainly the case here: I've lived in Halifax since 2015. But haven't grown up on the prairies as a queer, non binary youth there. I definitely wanted to examine that landscape, that history, that area, in my writing.”
Funk grapples with the pull of home—and home’s meaning—across Wonder World, as an unexpected inheritance has the character go from Halifax back to the prairies. It’s a story that meets the moment, not just because Wonder World’s very existence is pushback against rising 2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric, but also because it falls into the same burgeoning genre as cult-hit HBO series Somebody Somewhere: “I just kind of wanted to add to that growing list of books that remind us that we can be authentically who we are, no matter where we're from,” says Byggdin. “We don't necessarily have to leave and go off to the city to find that community, that connection, that belonging.”

Hearing Byggdin speak, you can’t help but think it’s the sort of thing Funk might say, despite it all (and despite their many differences). “This is a love letter to being queer in small-town Canada,” Byggdin adds. “It was important for me to not shy away from some of the difficulties that can occur when you grow up queer in a small town. But I also made a very intentional point of ending the book on a hopeful note. Because yeah: I think it's important for us to have moments of celebration, of joy. Because if all we hear in the media and all these stories that we read about, the movies and TV shows we watch, only have those moments of queer pain and sorrow and sadness, it kind of reinforces the stereotype or message that being queer or trans is only about sadness. And for me, it's brought so much joy and happiness to my life to embrace who I am. And I wanted to make sure I included that in the book as well. ”