SEAN MICHAELS is a novelist, short story writer and critic. Born in Stirling, Scotland and raised in Ottawa, he eventually settled in Montreal, where he founded the pioneering music blog Said the Gramophone. His award-winning writing has also appeared in The Observer, McSweeney's, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Maisonneuve and The Globe & Mail. Sean's debut novel, Us Conductors, received the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and was nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Kirkus Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award and (in translation) the Prix des libraires de Québec. His second novel, The Wagers, was published in 2019. Both have been translated in multiple languages. He enjoys cold water, warm madeleines, and songs with colours in their titles.