Trynne Delaney is a writer currently based in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). They are the author of the half-drowned (winner of the QWF First Book Prize) and A House Unsettled. Recently, they’ve begun work on a poetic project about the space between desire and departure. In their spare time they like to garden.

Synopsis

A House Unsettled

"Who built this house? Whose money? Whose blood?" Ghosts aren't the only thing that can haunt a house. Trynne Delaney's debut novel explores the insidious legacies of violence and oppression--and how Black, queer love and resistance can disrupt them. With her dad's incarceration, escalating fights with her mom, and an overbearing stepdad she's not sure she can trust, Asha is desperate for the fresh start promised by a move to the country. Her great aunt Aggie's crumbling, pest-ridden house isn't exactly what she had in mind, but the immediate connection she makes with her new neighbor Cole seems like a good sign. Soon, though, Asha's optimism is shadowed by strange and disturbing occurrences within the old house's walls: footsteps stalking the halls; a persistent chill; cold hands around her neck in the middle of the night . Fearing for her loved ones' safety--and her own--Asha seeks out the source of these terrifying incidents and uncovers secrets from the past that connect her and Cole's families and reach into the present. But as tensions with her mom and stepdad rise and Cole withdraws, Asha is left alone to try and break the cycle of violence that holds them all in its haunting grip.

the half-drowned

the half-drowned is a vision of a future at the end of the world where what survives is the shapeshifting love of family both given and chosen. Drawing on the Afro-diasporic ancestral knowledge of water and the urgency of desire, Delaney builds a glittering, speculative world where community holds through grief, where we must choose to fend for ourselves while also caring for others. the half-drowned is a genre-bending novella that crafts a polyphony of voices to speak to and through our lives and dreams in order to reach for the unspoken and unsayable and make it heard.