Alison McCreesh is back with a new book: The Short Years

Yellowknife illustrator and graphic novelist Alison McCreesh returns with The Short Years, a collection of standalone comics inspired by day-to-day life with her kids.

McCreesh told Cabin Radio she drew the panels for The Short Years after her kids went to sleep or she finished housework. “Whenever something would strike me, I would draw it up,” she said.

WIN A COPY!
Head to the bottom of this article for your chance to win your own copy of The Short Years – and details about two book launch events in the coming days.

After seven years, McCreesh had more than 350 individual comic strips. She selected the best 200 for the book.

The comics are punchy and at times absurd in their humour – in the way that kids can be – but they don’t shy away from heavier themes, including the death of a pet or friends moving away.

“Things happen,” said McCreesh. “Our family dog passed away, because, you know, they do, they get old. And she’d been in the comics for quite a while.

“At some point our best friends moved away, which is a very Yellowknife thing. I think there was nothing funny about that, but it’s also very relatable.”

McCreesh said she tried to depict these events in a way that worked within four panels and, most of the time, found humour in a given situation.

Unlike her previous memoirs, this one isn’t set in a specific place and is much more intimate.

“I feel like the location was almost the main point of a lot of them,” McCreesh said of her other books.

“I did the one book about moving to Yellowknife and discovering Old Town. And then I did the circumpolar travel book, where I was showing all these different locations in the North,” she said of Ramshackle (2015) and Norths (2018).

McCreesh said The Short Years is instead a zoomed-in look at her life.

“Instead of looking at the world around me, it’s really just the little cocoon of family life with little kids,” she said.

McCreesh changed the names of her children for the publication.

“They’re getting a real kick out of it. I thought the 11-year-old might be a bit embarrassed, but he’s able to just see that it was in the past,” she said.

McCreesh has caught them out of the corner of her eye, “sitting on the couch and reading the book and then smiling, giggling and sometimes laughing out loud.”

“And the little one can’t read yet, but she really looks at the pictures – and then she recognizes herself,” she added.

The Short Years is published by Conundrum Press and can be purchased at Yellowknife Books, Down to Earth Gallery, Sundog Trading Post or online.

There will be an adults-only book launch this Friday, May 8 at the Top Knight from 5-8pm.

A separate, kid-friendly event presented by the NWT Literacy Council will take place on Sunday, May 10 at The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, with an interactive drawing and storytelling hour starting at 2pm and the book launch at 3pm.

Win a copy

To win a free copy of the book, send an email with your name and phone number to [email protected] by 8pm on Thursday, May 7.

We’ll draw a winner on air. Listen to Mornings at the Cabin on Friday, May 8 to find out if a copy of The Short Years is making its way to you.