Victoria Hetherington is the author of the Amazon First Novel Award shortlisted and critically acclaimed novel MOONCALVES (Now or Never, 2019) and the novel AUTONOMY (Dundurn Press, 2022).
Hetherington's debut novel MOONCALVES (Now or Never Publishing, April 2019), has been called a "a stunning debut," (The Globe and Mail) "A stylish puzzle of a story...both singular and absorbing" (The Toronto Star) named alongside Netflix's Wild Wild Country and Claudia Dey's Heatbreakers as a current cult narrative "filling a particular, and dark, societal need" (Quill and Quire) called "a work of great thematic depth" and whose central relationship "I completely loved and about whom I have had to restrain myself from writing paragraph after paragraph" (The Puritan). According to The Vancouver Sun, "The arrival of Hetherington’s unique narrative voice may announce the coming of a new genre. You may be tempted, if you are as impressed by this debut as this reviewer is, to see Hetherington as the millennial generation’s persuasive answer to Atwood."
Hetherington's sophomore novel AUTONOMY was released Spring 2022 with Rare Machines/Dundurn Press. Described by Giller-winning author Michael Redhill as "a beautifully written and profoundly enthralling novel that made me wonder if Joan Didion had started writing literary fiction," the book was called "a remarkable work of fiction" in the Vancouver Sun; Liz Harmer, author of The Amateurs, said "Hetherington's vision is bleak, but their glittering prose gives even the most monstrous realities of late-capitalism an unsettling glimmer."
Noted critic Steven J. Beattie wrote that book is "a philosophical rumination on the nature of human agency in the guise of a dystopian narrative about technology and a global pandemic." From the Toronto Star: "Over punchy, effortless chapters Hetherington spins a delectably serpentine tale." The book has received additional praise in Quill and Quire, the Literary Review of Canada, CBC The Next Chapter, etc. Brought to life by Sierra Kline and OrangeSky Productions, Autonomy is available as an Audiobook on Audible.
Based on her Masters' thesis project, Hetherington's digital fiction project I HAVE TO TELL YOU (0s&1s, 2014) was reviewed and mentioned in places like the LA Review of Books, HTMLGiant, Ploughshares. Victoria's writing has appeared or will appear in Hazlitt, Taddle Creek, EVENT, Joyland, This Magazine, Broken Pencil Magazine, The Puritan, The Trinity Review, The Toronto Quarterly, The Waterhouse Review, This Recording, The Hart House Review and others. Hetherington served as Fiction Editor at Broken Pencil Magazine and as a facilitator for the Toronto Writers Collective. Victoria has spoken at Word on the Street festival, and will appear at Fan Expo Canada, the International Festival of Authors in Toronto and Calgary-based Wordfest.
