Girl Runner is the story of Aganetha Smart, a former Olympic athlete who was famous in the 1920s, but now, at age 104, lives in a nursing home, alone and forgotten by history. For Aganetha, a competitive and ambitious woman, her life remains present and unfinished in her mind. When her quiet life is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of two young strangers, Aganetha begins to reflect on her childhood in rural Ontario and her struggles to make an independent life for herself in the city.

Without revealing who they are, or what they may want from her, the visitors take Aganetha on an outing from the nursing home. As ready as ever for adventure, Aganetha's memories are stirred when the pair return her to the family farm where she was raised. The devastation of the First World War and the Spanish flu epidemic, the optimism of the 1920s and the sacrifices of the 1930s play out in Aganetha's mind, as she wrestles with the confusion and displacement of the present. (From House of Anansi Press)

Girl Runner was a finalist for the 2014 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. It is now on the longlist for Canada Reads 2025. The final five books and the panellists who chose them will be revealed on Jan. 23, 2025.

Carrie Snyder is a fiction, nonfiction and children's book author. Her other books include the novel Francie's Got A Gun and short story collections The Juliet Stories, which was a finalist for the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award, and Hair Hat, which was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award for Short Fiction. She is from Hamilton, Ont.

"When I became a runner, I really became a runner. I realized that I liked running long distances, and started competing: first in longer races, then a half marathon and then a marathon. And I started to think I would like to write a book about an endurance runner.

"Running has certainly helped build my confidence as a writer. It's not artificial at all to set yourself a goal like finishing a race that you think you maybe can't complete, and then training and actually seeing your hard work pay off. There's something very, very rewarding in that experience.

"But I also found that running had become, for me, kind of a meditation. It helps me formulate ideas but in a strange way, I would say. I don't go out and start thinking about plot or character. Or I may go out thinking that I will think about it, and then discover that my mind completely empties out, which is kind of a meditative quality. My mind goes still, and then when I'm finished my run I'll have an amazing idea."