Canadian
Taylor Fitzpatrick told her mother at the age of three that she would grow up to be an author and illustrator. Half of that came true. Born in Toronto, she took an honours degree in English literature at the University of Toronto and now lives and works in Ottawa. Her Between the Teeth trilogy — Coming in First Place, And Then, and Between the Teeth — follows David, a professional hockey player who has known Jake Lourdes' name since he was fourteen, through trades, better rooms, worse rooms, and everything the two of them decline to say out loud. Fitzpatrick writes queer sports romance that withholds comfort. Her couples go quiet on each other, get sent down, sign elsewhere, and keep the relationship off the record while the season grinds forward. She became a hockey fan only after her brother stopped playing competitively, to his lasting irritation, and the sport in her books reads less like glory than like a workplace that uses people up. She publishes independently; her readers found her by word of mouth.