About

Come to Books on the Rise and celebrate the launch of debut novel 'Stun' with talented author Becky Wills!

Expect an insightful and relaxed evening with a Q+A, book signing and immersive writing experience within the intimacy of a local indie bookshop! Enjoy discussions of the upcoming novel and the chance to recieve bespoke typewritten poems.

About Stun:

In the fictional Chicago suburb of New Lawn, a young woman grows up with a workaholic father and a dysfunctional mother who has a predilection for Stun—a prescription drug prone to abuse. Between Dad's business trips and Mom's affairs and overdoses, she grows self-reliant and introverted, possessed of an interior life possibly more interesting (and seemingly more safe) than the real one. Navigating the challenges of work, school, sexuality—and above all, her own feelings—she searches for her own place in the world. Until at last she finds that she, too, has a taste for Stun.

Stun is a masterpiece that lightly dances along the tightrope between prose and poetry, while also looking at the addictions society condemns, and the ones it condones. With echoes of Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red and Ocean Vuong's novel-in-fragments, it's a sparkling debut from a fantastic new talent—Becky Wills.

"In this propulsive, beautifully written novel in fragments, Becky Wills conjures a mesmerizing world of addiction, longing, and spiritual despair that is nevertheless steeped in an uncanny radiance that infuses even its darkest moments. A compelling read."

— Laurie Sheck, author of Cyborg Fever and A Monster's Notes

"Built around addiction's peripheries and ripples, Stun is an artful work of searching. Brevity belies momentous impact and a heightened, kaleidoscopic narrative span; I have not stopped thinking about it since its concluding scenes."

— Douglas A. Martin, author of Outline of My Lover and Wolf

About Becky Wills:

Becky Wills received a BA from DePaul University, an MFA from The New School, and a PhD from University of Surrey, where she teaches creative writing. She is the founder of Own Your Life Writing, a not-for-profit organization offering educational tools and resources to give people the confidence, skills, and support to write their own life experiences. Originally from Chicagoland, she is based in the UK. Her novel-in-fragments, Stun, is forthcoming from Tortoise Books.