Come for a reading, signing, and Q&A with Duluth author Eric Cyr to celebrate the launch of his debut book, a collection of short stories titled "Here It Snows in June" (from Wiseblood Books).

The lies and longings, the loves and violence, the vulnerabilities at the center of modern existence are evident throughout each entry in Here it Snows in June, Eric Cyr’s debut collection of short fiction. Young husbands and fathers, high school students and would-be priests–all are asked to face up to the bitterness born of the choices they and their loved ones have made. Archetypal Midwest moods and landscapes shape these striking stories that serve as an unsentimental homage to the “flyover” country of Minnesota where characters are confronted with the disorienting discrepancies between forecasts and real weather–where their high hopes are hit down by hard truths.

By turns darkly comic, startling, and mythically strange, these stories track the quiet lives of men who long for connection and transcendence as they struggle to truly make sense of their days and to live intentionally in a world that often mocks and belittles those who, relegated to a regular existence, decide to dedicate themselves to hidden duties. The characters in Here It Snows in June negotiate their sense of self and the stranger, God and the world. Their longings are undermined and threatened by their own stubbornness and even their self-serving moral misprisions. Still, Cyr’s characters are never denied occasions to be free from their resentments, to strive for freedom and wholeness, and to win small victories over their smaller selves.

"Eric Cyr has nailed the elusive atmosphere of the contemporary Midwest like no one else I’ve read. Wherever you’re from, you will recognize these characters from their faults and their longings, and their sometimes-heroic, sometimes-fumbled attempts to reconcile the two." --Brigid Pasulka, author of A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True and The Sun and Other Stars.

"Eric Cyr thrives in writing about his twin love affairs: with the natural world, and with the Divine. In this brilliant collection, he evokes the weight of death and the joy of creation with equal fluency." --Joe Pug, singer/songwriter

Books will be available for sale at the event and can also be ordered now from the publisher: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p228/Here_It_Snows_in_June_%26_Other_Stories%2C_by_Eric_Cyr%3A_Preorder.html