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Milksop

$19.99

Set to release on May 23, 2026. Order now for shipping on or before the launch date.

The summer of 1979 should have been simple: two months on a dairy farm in rural Ontario to make up for a disastrous winter term. But for seventeen-year-old Evan Mulder—awkward, angsty, and armed only with a gift for running and numbers—nothing about the Logan farm proves simple.

Dumped in a dark laneway by his disappointed parents, Evan finds himself among strangers: the reserved Niall, warm-hearted Connie, their two young children, and one very judgmental farm dog. Between early morning milkings and mucking out stalls, Evan discovers that the Logans are caught between a rock and a hard place—mounting debt, a predatory neighbour circling their land, and farm records buried in desk drawers like secrets no one wants to face.

As Evan learns to navigate life beyond his suburban comfort zone, he also confronts the truth he’s been running from all year. In a summer of chickens and calculations, flower gardens and financial ledgers, he’ll find unexpected ways to belong—and discover that being small in a world of big egos might not be weakness, but wisdom.

A tender coming-of-age story set against the rhythms of rural life, Milksop is about the quiet courage it takes to show up, the healing power of honest work, and learning that sometimes the smallest acts of care matter most.

Set to release on May 23, 2026. Order now for shipping on or before the launch date.

The summer of 1979 should have been simple: two months on a dairy farm in rural Ontario to make up for a disastrous winter term. But for seventeen-year-old Evan Mulder—awkward, angsty, and armed only with a gift for running and numbers—nothing about the Logan farm proves simple.

Dumped in a dark laneway by his disappointed parents, Evan finds himself among strangers: the reserved Niall, warm-hearted Connie, their two young children, and one very judgmental farm dog. Between early morning milkings and mucking out stalls, Evan discovers that the Logans are caught between a rock and a hard place—mounting debt, a predatory neighbour circling their land, and farm records buried in desk drawers like secrets no one wants to face.

As Evan learns to navigate life beyond his suburban comfort zone, he also confronts the truth he’s been running from all year. In a summer of chickens and calculations, flower gardens and financial ledgers, he’ll find unexpected ways to belong—and discover that being small in a world of big egos might not be weakness, but wisdom.

A tender coming-of-age story set against the rhythms of rural life, Milksop is about the quiet courage it takes to show up, the healing power of honest work, and learning that sometimes the smallest acts of care matter most.

Purchase ebook versions directly from Chicken House Press - available May 23, 2026

Available for pre-order through other retailers on April 23, 2026

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John Van Rys is no longer young, he hasn’t been urban for about thirty years, and he’s never been hip. That makes him old, rural, and pretty square. That said, when he was 61, the Canada Council for the Arts designated him a New and Emerging Artist. Go figure!

John lives on a hobby farm outside Dunnville, Ontario, with his wife April, dogs, cats, horses, free-run egg-laying hens, and Cayuga ducks, as well as two of his adult children, their partners, his granddaughter—and, just to keep things interesting, his mother-in-law. This life has supplied much of the inspiration for his fiction. People tell John that he has a thing about chickens, so he’s been given chicken mugs, chicken boots, chicken T-shirts, a stuffed chicken, and a chicken lunch bag. Chickens do appear all over the place in his fiction, but he’s convinced that doesn’t mean he has a weird obsession with them.

Until his retirement on July 1, 2025, his day job involved being a mild-mannered English professor, but his passion since late 2016 has been writing stories. He’s had short stories published in The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Agnes and True, Blank Spaces, and Solum Literary Journal. His story “Excavations” won the 2022 Prairie Fire MRB Short Fiction Contest. His first book-length collection, the story cycle Moonshine Promises, was published in 2021 by Wipf and Stock. He has drafted a second collection of stories, The Healing Arts, through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and a mentorship at the Humber School for Writers Graduate Certificate. He completed his first novel, Milksop, through The Novelry. You can find out more about John’s writing by visiting his website, johnvanrys.com. If you wish to stay up-to-date with his writing shenanigans, you can follow him at his Facebook page and at his Substack newsletter, Old Dog Dumps (ODD): Dispatches from a Journeyman Writer.