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WORK TITLE: The Whole Beautiful World
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Hamilton
STATE: ON
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Canada; married; husband’s name Mark; children: Elliott.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Redeemer University and University of Toronto.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Has worked as a high school English teacher.
WRITINGS
Contributor to journals, including Puritan, Grain, Ryga, and Qwerty.
SIDELIGHTS
Melissa Kuipers is a Canadian writer and educator. She grew up on an egg farm in Southern Ontario and went on to graduate from Redeemer University. Kuipers worked as a high school English teacher before continuing her studies at the University of Toronto, where she earned a master’s degree in English with a focus in creative writing. Kuipers has published fiction and nonfiction in a number of journals, including Puritan, Grain, Ryga, and Qwerty.
Kuipers published the short story collection The Whole Beautiful World in 2017. Many of the stories in this collection explore the tumultuous relationship the characters have with their religion, family, and love lives. In “Mother of the Bride Dress,” a middle-aged woman gains confidence to dance at her daughter’s wedding after receiving a random compliment. In “Holy Oil,” a young girl attempts an exorcism on her younger brother after falling for a televangelist scam. After an accident, a group of friends in “Road Pizza” find it increasingly difficult to talk to one another being unable to cope with the reality of what happened. With “Happy All the Time,” a young man turns to religion to cope with a difficult step-father, only to find that he has come full circle and become the very person he sought to distance himself from.
In an article in the Hamilton Spectator, Kuipers talked with Emma Reilly about her debut collection. She admitted that with age, her focus on the beautiful things in life came to the fore. Kuipers explained that “we put so much emphasis on the big things and fame and celebrity, but often the most important revelations in our lives are just everyday things that take place.” Kuipers confessed that she had originally planned to start writing a novel for her first book. “I hadn’t really considered myself a short story writer going into my Masters, when I really started this collection.” Kuipers elaborated: “But I love the short story, just for the compactness, and the attention to detail you have to give.”
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews claimed that “Kuipers’ light touch and eye for telling details will keep the reader wanting more.” The same Kirkus Reviews contributor called The Whole Beautiful World “a collection of delicate sketches that mark Kuipers as a writer of promise.” Booklist contributor Courtney Eathorne insisted that the stories in this collection “are tight and deeply entertaining,” adding that “readers will likely gobble the whole book in one satisfying sitting.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2017, Courtney Eathorne, review of The Whole Beautiful World, p. 49.
Hamilton Spectator, October 25, 2017, Emma Reilly, “Hamilton Author Examines the Whole Beautiful World.”
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2017, review of The Whole Beautiful World.
Hamilton author examines the whole beautiful world
Melissa Kuipers’ debut collection of short stories is a nuanced portrait of small-town life
WHATSON Oct 25, 2017 by Emma Reilly Hamilton Spectator
KUIPERS
Author Melissa Kuipers's short story collection highlights the beauty in our ordinary experiences. - Cathie Coward,The Hamilton Spectator
A university student whose jealousy prevents her from bonding with her roommate — until her rival becomes pregnant. A volunteer at a group home who finds deep meaning in his complicated friendship with a volatile patient. A young woman who prays to be pretty and receives an unexpected response.
Hamilton author Melissa Kuipers invites you into each of these characters' lives and minds in "The Whole Beautiful World" (Brindle & Glass), her debut collection of short stories.
Kuipers, who lives in west Hamilton with her husband, Mark, and 7-month-old son, Elliott, demonstrates her nuanced writing style and keen eye for everyday details in "The Whole Beautiful World."
Her protagonists, many of whom are teenagers, face huge struggles: alienation, poverty, loneliness, and spiritual confusion. Each story packs an emotional punch, despite lasting only a few pages.
And yet, as the title suggests, "The Whole Beautiful World" isn't a bleak book. The stories are complex, bittersweet, and highlight the brilliance of everyday life.
"As I've aged, I've felt like there's so much beauty and importance that goes unnoticed in our ordinary experiences," said Kuipers, 34. "We put so much emphasis on the big things and fame and celebrity, but often the most important revelations in our lives are just everyday things that take place."
Kuipers began her career as a high school English teacher before completing her Masters in English in the field of Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. She wrote the first story that would become part of this collection in 2006, when she was still an undergraduate student at Redeemer University.
"I hadn't really considered myself a short story writer going into my Masters, when I really started this collection. I thought that I'd do a novel," Kuipers said. "But I love the short story, just for the compactness, and the attention to detail you have to give. You have to cut it back to just the basics — there can't really be excess."
The characters in "The Whole Beautiful World" each have roots in the fictional small town of Talbot — named after the main street in her real-life hometown of Aylmer, Ontario. Kuipers, who was born and raised on an egg farm, draws from her experiences growing up in the tightly-knit, Dutch-Canadian Christian community in her writing. For example, the title of the first story, "Mourning Wreath," is a nod to the Aylmer museum's collection of the wreaths that Victorians created using their deceased loved ones' hair that fascinated Kuipers as a child.
"A lot of the innocuous details are real-life stuff. The mattress-surfing is something that my aunts do — they attach a mattress to a tractor and pull it around and ride it. It's such a small-town thing," she said. "Those kinds of details are inspired by real life, but the actual characters and their personality traits are mostly invented."
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Faith and religion also plays a major role in "The Whole Beautiful World." Kuipers, who is on maternity leave from her role as director of discipleship ministries at Central Presbyterian Church, is a person of deep faith who doesn't shy away from examining the complexities and shortcomings of modern-day Christianity.
"I didn't intend on writing about religion — but it sort of just came out, as the thing that I know and as a thing that is so important to me, in good and bad ways," Kuipers said.
"It's so fraught. Faith is such a powerful force of healing, of comfort, and yet it can be very destructive. We see so many ways that it is used as a source of manipulation, and as a source of justifying selfishness."
"There are different ways that I wanted to shine a light on how religion can be really distorted."
Her next project, a nonfiction collection of personal essays, will include explorations of her faith journey — including excerpts from her year-long stint at a Bible college in Texas — as well as reflections on growing up on a farm and becoming a mother.
"Mothering has brought out a different aspect of writing for me," she said. "I feel like this has been a fascinating journey that I've had so many things to write about."
ereilly@thespec.com
905-526-2452 | @EmmaatTheSpec
Melissa was raised on a chicken farm in a small town in Southern Ontario, Canada. She writes fiction and creative non-fiction. She has been published in literary journals such as The Puritan, Grain Magazine, Ryga, and Qwerty. Her first book, The Whole Beautiful World, is a collection of short stories, published by Brindle and Glass. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with her husband, Mark, and son, Elliott.
Kuipers, Melissa: THE WHOLE
BEAUTIFUL WORLD
Kirkus Reviews.
(Aug. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Kuipers, Melissa THE WHOLE BEAUTIFUL WORLD Brindle & Glass (Adult Fiction) $18.00 10, 31
ISBN: 978-1-927366-62-2
Stories explore the inner turmoil of characters struggling against the constraints of family, religion, and
love.At the end of "Mother of the Bride Dress," the sixth story in Kuipers' debut collection, a late-middleaged
woman shimmies across the dance floor at her daughter's wedding. Recently reinvigorated by a stray
compliment and attendance at a Pentecostal church service, the woman notices her daughter watching her
"with delight or perhaps with derision" but decides that the look "would turn to delight if she danced long
enough." Kuipers is especially interested in working toward these types of quiet revelations, though they
aren't always for the better. In "Holy Oil," a young girl who tries to exorcise her wily younger brother with
oil she bought from a TV preacher has to confront the reality of televangelism--and her family. In "Road
Pizza," a group of friends can no longer find ways to communicate after a freak accident shadows their
relationships. Kuipers grew up in a Dutch-Canadian Christian community, and many of her stories are shot
through with spiritual turmoil, though her treatment of this turmoil is satisfyingly nuanced. In "Happy All
the Time," one of Kuipers' few male protagonists is able to cope with an abrasive stepfather by turning to
youth groups and Bible study until his commitment to God turns him into the type of man he was trying to
run away from. These are quiet stories, sometimes eschewing traditional notions of arc and climax, and
often quite short; the result is that they can feel more like blueprints for stories than full narratives. But
Kuipers' light touch and eye for telling details will keep the reader wanting more. A collection of delicate
sketches that mark Kuipers as a writer of promise.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Kuipers, Melissa: THE WHOLE BEAUTIFUL WORLD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2017. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A500365001/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5ead581c. Accessed 23 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A500365001
4/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1524511548777 2/2
The Whole Beautiful World
Courtney Eathorne
Booklist.
114.1 (Sept. 1, 2017): p49.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Whole Beautiful World. By Melissa Kuipers. Oct. 2017.194p. Brindle & Glass, paper, $18
(9781927366622).
In this soft-sold and pithy new collection of short stories, Kuipers presents a myriad of complicated
Canadian women. Born and bred in the Great White North herself, Kuipers works a deft hand to sculpt the
characters and environments of each piece. In one, a prenatal ultrasound technician navigates life's
perpetual disappointments while waving a wand over lifeless uteruses and dating an unimpressive hot-air
balloon pilot. In another, an eighth-grade spitfire fights an all-consuming urge to have a baby. The women
of Kuipers' stories vary in age and susceptibility to joining cults, but they all wax epically on the frustrating
truths of the female condition. The stories are tight and deeply entertaining; readers will likely gobble the
whole book in one satisfying sitting. Kuipers' knack for demonstrating the poetic specificity of everyday life
can be best exemplified with this, from "Holy Oil," a story of sister-brother ferocity: "I held him pinned for
three half-minute screams, his face turning the colour of the rims of Mum's eyes." A sly and slim
collection.--Courtney Eathorne
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Eathorne, Courtney. "The Whole Beautiful World." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2017, p. 49. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509161579/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9f212504.
Accessed 23 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509161579