The Life of A Creature
Arsenal Pulp Press | Coming Out April 28, 2026
An astonishing debut story collection about the interconnection between humans and animals navigating love, loss, and healing
Creatures swim, slither, and soar their way through this stunning short story collection about the inextricable nature of humans and animals that celebrates and bears witness to our fellow creatures and to the complex emotional terrain of our own lives.
A woman's personal trauma and anxiety are intertwined with the lives of the feral dogs abandoned in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. As a lesbian love affair unravels, the secrets of a gift-giving crow are revealed. The life of a veterinarian is told through the animals that she has loved and that she has tried to save. A dying man dreams of returning as a vulture after death. The loss of sea turtles on the brink of extinction weaves through a mother's devastation over the loss of a daughter.
Beautiful in its renderings of human experience, The Life of a Creature is a tender and haunting book imbued with the deeply sensory intimacies of the animal world.
"The Life of a Creature is a beautiful and complex book. The stories weave through the emotional terrain of death and love and of the roles that animals play in our lives, their intertwined relationship to us. I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this one. It's different in the best way - the passion of a singular voice and vision."
-Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8
"In Nadja Lubiw-Hazard's haunting stories, humans and nonhumans alike are held captive - by zoos, by family, by grief. Amid the rituals of life and death, the characters in these stories reflect and comfort one another: damaged humans seek solace in the natural world, and animals, both alive and dreamed, provide healing in unexpected and beautiful ways. With Lubiw-Hazard's vibrant language and attention to detail, The Life of a Creature is a powerful book embracing the complexities of life in both human and nonhuman realms."
-Midge Raymond, author of Floreana and My Last Continent
"A poetic rendering of humans and the animals they encounter, these stories hum with the intimacies of life and death, love and grief, desire, and loss. The Life of a Creature is a rich and evocative work that speaks to what it is to be alive."
-Pamela Mulloy, author of As Little as Nothing