The Beauty and the Hell of It
& Other Stories
Debut Short Story Collection wins Bronze Award in the 2025 Global Book Awards by critically acclaimed author Lynda Williams
Short Stories Category
The Beauty and the Hell of It & Other Stories is a collection of stories about women (and one man) who quietly resist and the resulting moments of transition, acceptance, and vindication. Whether they wrestle with grief, growth, trauma, or all three, these characters don’t give in to expectations about who or how they should be. These stories will appeal to readers who enjoyed the pivotal moments of ordinary life in Sophie Stocking’s
Walking Leonard and Other Stories and those who want a slice of contemporary womanhood served up with dark humour as offered in Meghan Bell’s Erase and Rewind.
About Global Book Awards
The Global Awards aim to discover new talent as well as recognize fine examples of self-published books. As such, we hope they will give self-published authors the recognition they deserve, whether that is in their writing creativity, or in the way they have marketed their books to attract new readers. In this modern age of self-publishing, books need to be appraised not only by their content and writing style, but also by the way they present and market themselves to the prospective buyer, whether that is in the good ratings it has on important stores like Amazon, its book cover and description, or the number of reviews it has collected. They must also appeal to new readers so part of the evaluation included a survey asking avid readers to select the top 5 books they enjoyed the most
About Lynda:
Lynda Williams is a short fiction writer based in Calgary/Treaty 7 Territory. Her work engages with themes of class, feminism, and mental illness. She describes her flavour as If-Raymond-Carver-Wrote-Feisty-Women. Lynda’s stories have appeared in Grain, The Humber Literary Review, oranges journal, HLR Spotlight, and on Room’s website. She has been a winner of the Edmonton Voices competition, the Reedsy Prompts Challenge, and has received honorable mentions in the Humber Literary Review’s and Room’s fiction contests.
She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award, and her debut collection of stories, The Beauty and the Hell of It was released by Guernica Editions in September.
More information can be found at: Lynda Williams
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