High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant. She's trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students during a lockdown. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha, who is in peril. Maria, the school's counselor, is second-guessing her decision to turn him in.

As the lockdown drags on, Elise can no longer deny that she's going into labour. And she'll have to rely on the students to get her through: Shai-Anna and Faduma end up acting as midwives, and the others do what they can.

In the same way the self shatters and sharpens when one is doing the hard work of giving birth, so does the narrative of the novel, with various people in the school picking up the threads of the story.

With infinite empathy for all involved, Born explores the myriad pitfalls and utopian possibilities of the school system, motherhood, and caregiving, and the sometimes fraught, sometimes transcendent nature of the student-teacher relationship.

(From Coach House Books)

Born is available in June 2025.

Heather Birrell is the author of the Gerald Lampert award-winning poetry collection Float and Scurry, and two story collections, Mad Hope and I know you are but what am I? She has also won the Journey Prize and been shortlisted for both the Western and National Magazine Awards. She made the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Wind. Birrell lives in Toronto. In 2022, Birrell was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.