Kirti Bhadresa’s short story collection, An Astonishment of Stars, has been longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize.

Kirti’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Fiddlehead, PrairieFire, The Quarantine Review, The Sprawl, and Room, and she has been a finalist for the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Award in the category of Feature Writing. Bhadresa lives with her family in Calgary, AB, on Treaty 7 territory.

When did you first come up with the idea for your book?

This book began as a list poem. Each line expanded into paragraphs, pages, and then, eventually, full stories. Each story was centred around a type of kitchen. Over time, the kitchen faded into the background and the stories in An Astonishment of Stars came to stand on their own. Food remains a part of each one.

What advice would you have for someone struggling to make time to write?

Settle for any time over perfect time. For a lot of years of my life I believed I couldn’t write unless I had a lot of spare time to dedicate to it, and a beautiful, private work space. It turns out creativity can thrive alongside chaos.

Why is it important for Canadians to read books by Canadian authors?

Where I have always lived, in Alberta, there are plenty of people who feel they aren’t heard by other Canadians. There are also those of us who feel that the loudest voice doesn’t represent us — our culture or our communities.  By reading, by bearing witness to tales that are varied and diverse, outside of the centre even, we learn about others. When we pick up a book, we signal our willingness to hear a story different from our own. Hopefully we also begin to understand what we share.

Who’s your favourite character in your longlisted book and why?

I adore Daksha in Daksha Takes The Cake. She longs to be a “real writer” and is willing to do a lot of other work to make that dream happen. I love her determination.

How many drafts did you go through when writing your book?

I am a very slow writer who writes messy drafts and a lot of them. These stories have been written over and over (and over!) in different tenses, explored from the points of view of each character to find the right protagonist. The joy of a short story is that one can play with it endlessly, rewrite it a hundred times over (some in my collection may have been). They are still alive to me and never really feel finished.

Follow us on X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for the latest Giller Prize news, including when the shortlist is announced on October 6, 2025.