Michael Blouin

Michael Blouin has been a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bpNichol Award, and the CBC Literary Award. He has been the recipient of the Lilian I. Found Award, the Diana Brebner Award and the Archibald Lampman Award. His novel Chase and Haven won the ReLit Award for Best Novel, an award he received again for his novel Skin House. He is an Instructor at the University of Toronto, a guest lecturer for Carleton University, and serves as an adjudicator for both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Two of his novels are now in a permanent archive on the Moon, having landed with NASA/Firefly in 2025.

Cover of The Dark King Swallows the World by Robert G. Penner

THROWBACK: The Dark King Swallows the World by Robert G. Penner

December 13, 2025 by Michael Blouin

As Nora, the protagonist of Robert G. Penner’s The Dark King Swallows the World points out early on, an empiricist “only believes what there’s evidence for. Things you can see with your own eyes,” and for much of my reading and writing life this has held true for me as both a consumer and a practitioner of fiction.