We are sad to learn that Canadian writer John Lavery passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. The author of two acclaimed short story collections, Very Good Butter (ECW Press, 2000) and You, Kwaznievski, You Piss Me Off (ECW Press, 2004), and the Globe & Mail Top 100 book, Sandra Beck (House of Anansi Press, 2010), Lavery was much admired by his readers and his fellow writers. In a beautiful and poignant obituary, Ottawa writer rob mclennan writes, "Dammit, we loved him. His was the open secret we told everyone about. Why aren't you, we asked, reading John Lavery?"
