Maggie Helwig

Maggie Helwig connects Toronto fiction, poetry, essays, Anglican ministry, and social-justice activism. Girls Fall Down, published by Coach House Books in 2008, follows photographer Alex and his friend Susie after unexplained collapses spread through Toronto’s subway system. The novel turns urban unease into a study of illness, vulnerability, surveillance, and the ways strangers interpret one another during crisis. The 2009 Toronto Book Award jury named it to the shortlist, and Toronto Public Library chose it for One Book Toronto in 2012. Helwig’s earlier fiction includes Where She Was Standing and Between Mountains, while her poetry, essays, and later nonfiction extend her engagement with war, housing, faith, and public responsibility. She has served at the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields since 2013. Girls Fall Down brings these concerns into a tense city narrative, treating Toronto’s transit network as both shared infrastructure and a space where private fear becomes public experience.