Cara Hedley reads at McNally Robinson on November 8

These days, Jessica Westhead works as a freelance editor, but, not too long ago, she was an office temp. “I’ve worked in more offices than I can count, probably at least 20,” she laughs. “Government offices, software companies, finance, hospitals — everywhere I worked, I started seeing similar patterns. An office is such an unusual, false environment, yet you spend more time with your co-workers than with your family. I saw a lot of icky, passive-aggressive behaviour, and I’m just fascinated by the whole world.”

That fascination led Westhead to write Pulpy and Midge, her debut novel about a shy office worker named Pulpy (he drank a lot of orange juice in college) and his wife, Midge. They have comfortable, quirky routines (ice-dancing, candle parties), and everything is fine until Pulpy gets a new boss — a swinger who takes a liking to Midge. “Pulpy likes his routine, and gets really freaked out when it’s shaken up,” says Westhead.

The book’s cover prominently displays Midge’s goldfish, Mr. Fins (replacing her much-mourned bird, Mr. Wings). “I never had a goldfish, but I just like them,” says Westhead. “I had this little rubber goldfish that I carried around and Alanna, the editor at Coach House, saw it one day and said ‘Oh my God! Can you take a photo of that?’ My husband’s a photographer, so he did a whole little photo shoot for the fish, with lights and everything. Now he’s Mr. Fins!”

Westhead is on tour with a fellow Coach House author — and familiar Calgary face — Cara Hedley. Her debut novel, Twenty Miles, ventures into the world of locker rooms and beer-bonging with The Scarlets, a tough-talking, much-conflicted women’s hockey team. Hedley and Westhead launch their novels at McNally Robinson on November 8, 7 p.m.

Buckle up for the latest instalment of the flywheel reading series, in which four gentlemen writers will dazzle you with their wordplay. Check out Glen Dresser, Doug Ferguson, Ian Kinney and Andre Rodrigues in flywheel’s Day of the Dead, which hits McNally Robinson on November 1, 7 p.m.

The Canadian Prairies are home to the world’s largest concentration of Hutterites, but what do we know about our black-hatted neighbours? Mary-Ann Kirkby spent the first 10 years of her life in Fairholme Colony. Her new book, I Am Hutterite, provides an intimate insight into this proud community. Join her for a reading at McNally Robinson on November 2, noon.

If you’ve got the slightest touristy bone in your body, you’ve heard of Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. In Waxworks, Trina Davies’s new play and winner of the Alberta Playwriting Competition (Grand Prize category), we travel back to Paris, 1789, to learn the story of Marie Grosholtz, the sculptor who brought the museum to life. A pay-what-you-can reading hits the Glenbow Museum on November 2, 7 p.m.

While Cassie Campbell was the team captain of Canada’s National Women’s Team in hockey, it took home two Olympic gold medals, a world championship gold and silver and one Four Nations Cup. In her new autobiography, H.E.A.R.T., Campbell looks back at the struggles and successes in the world’s fastest game. She heads to McNally Robinson on November 6, 6 p.m.

An elderly man living with his drug-dealing grandson. A drag queen on the verge of eviction. A mother and her dying son. In Jim Nason’s debut novel, The Housekeeping Journals, he reflects on death and suffering within the frame of Mrs. Neatson’s Easy Steps to Domestic Bliss for the Busy Housewife. His book launches at Pages Books on November 6, 7:30 p.m.

Celebrated watercolour artist Trisha Romance, inspired by an Anchorage reindeer, has written her debut children’s book, A Star for Christmas. With lush illustrations, she tells the tale of an elderly carpenter, finally building his own home. She visits McNally Robinson on November 7, 1 p.m.

Gary Geddes is a heavyweight; he’s written and edited over 35 books of poetry, fiction, criticism and travel literature and garnered a stack of literary awards along the way. His latest poetry collection, Falsework, examines the lives affected by the 1958 collapse of Vancouver’s Second Narrows Bridge. He reads at Pages Books on November 7, 7:30 p.m.

Every kid in school knows that Sir John A. Macdonald was Canada’s first prime minister — but what do we know beyond that? Richard Gwyn has embarked on an ambitious quest to shine a spotlight on Macdonald and he launches the biography’s first volume, The Man Who Made Us, at Pages Books on November 8, 7:30 p.m.