The Troupers
FINALIST for the 2022 RELIT AWARDS
The Trouper-Royale Orpheum Galaxie Theatre is a jewel in the entertainment crown of Niagara Falls. At least, that’s what the marquee out front says. To the Fabulous Trouper Quintuplets their family’s old theatre is a thorn in the crown of their adolescent memories.
Adult Fiction
Rockets Versus Gravity
A multi-faceted story told in four dramatic sections that explores how small actions and changes can give rise to startling and unintended consequences, and how human lives are connected in myriad ways.
The Indifference league
Sexy, racy, hilarious, and even moving, The Indifference League is a story of what happens when the starry-eyed optimism of the Greatest Generation crashes into the obsessions and fears of the New Lost Generation.
Destiny’s Telescope
The stories in Destiny’s Telescope illuminate the moments when life spins in unexpected and inexplicable ways.
Poetry
Apocalypse One Hundred
Welcome to the apocalypse! It has arrived … not with a bang, but with the white noise hum of tabloid news and the empty promise of the internet.
Richard Scarsbrook’s Apocalypse One Hundred strips
back the veneer of our screen filled lives to expose every nip and tuck of our digital fantasies. In one hundred words, each poem peeks over the event horizon to see the noise and distraction that binds us to this world, hemming in thought and imagination.
Six Weeks
The poems in Six Weeks are lush, layered, and rich with wit and imagination. Loving and desire are frequent subjects here, and Scarsbrook doesn’t shy away from vulnerability or romance. There’s a big imagination at work and play in these poems, a sharp intelligence, and a resonant ear.
YOUNG Adult fiction
Nothing Man and the Purple Zero
After stumbling onto a bank robbery in progress, Marty and Bill are mistaken for superheroes, and a video of their accidental gallantry goes viral. Unfazed by the fatc that they have no actual superpowers, the pair decide to play the roles of superheroes for real. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
The Monkeyface Chronicles
Philip Skyler learned early in his life that his face would get him into trouble and there was nothing he could do about it. Born with an extreme facial deformity, he became the object of attention. Though medical scientists named his condition Van der Woude syndrome, his classmates, especially the bullies, just called him “Monkeyface.”
Featherless Bipeds
There is no distorting the unwavering pull of guys to rock ‘n’ roll bands, and when Dak Sifter builds his band, the Featherless Bipeds, he has every intention of enjoying every wild, raunchy, ear-splitting moment of the ride. But as readers know from Dak’s experiences in Cheeseburger Subversive, life is wrought with perils, and now his band with its lure for girls, the quirky demands of band members, and the mercurial shifting values of youth culture — well, he still loves Zoe Perry doesn’t he? And he still wants to do well at university, and still believes in some code of ethics — well, doesn’t he?
Cheeseburger Subversive
We have all been there: those sublime and ordinary moments in growing up that create the evolution of change, or as Cheeseburger Subversive’s Dak Sifter would call it, a “shifting of gears”. Scarsbrook’s novel captures the weird logic of self-discovery that marks the explorations of boy becoming man, and in its noise and thrashing, explodes the maturity myth.
Film and TV
Royal Blood
A privileged young woman tries to find the compassionate higher ground when she is torn between the narcissistic insecurities of her former beauty queen mother, and The Queen, a mentally ill homeless woman who puts on regal airs.
Screenplay by Richard Scarsbrook
adapted from his novel Rockets Versus Gravity
Directed by Benjamin Rouse
Praise for The Troupers
“By turns hilarious and heartrending, this brilliantly written tale is one wild ride that will stay with you long after the curtain falls.”
— Terry Fallis two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
Praise for Rockets Versus Gravity
“Richard Scarsbrook’s Rockets Versus Gravity is a novel of confluence and departure…it creates its own small universe of hope, frustration, love, lust, tragedy, and comedy.”
5 Hearts (out of 5)
— Foreword Review
Praise for The Indifference League
“Fans of Scarsbrook will recognize his unique humor, unshakable realism, and remarkable character construction…the novel (has) smart, thoughtful and outlandish qualities. Scarsbrook transforms a league of stereotypes into full, memorable, and entertaining heroes.”
— Publishers Weekly
Praise for Destiny’s Telescope
“A gem. Scarsbrook’s stories are arresting. Anyone looking through the lens of his Telescope can’t miss the author’s own star – rising up through the literary universe to a date with charmed destiny.”
— The Ottawa Citizen
Praise for Nothing Man and The Purple Zero
“I haven’t laughed so hard…Nothing Man and the Purple Zero by Richard Scarsbrook is larger-than-life and imaginative, but at its heart it carries an important message for teens: that anyone can be a hero.”
— Canadian Children's Book Centre
Praise for The Monkeyface Chronicles
“This page turner rocks and rolls, and if you’re interested in sex, hockey, Toronto, motorcycles, small town politics, dysfunctional families, profanity, wine, and cemeteries, then this is the book for you… Scarsbrook is an excellent writer with great comic overtones.”
— Resource Links Magazine
Praise for Cheeseburger Subversive
“Cheeseburger Subversive is a coming-of-age story written with humour and panache. Scarsbrook has a special eye for the absurd, a wonderful way of looking at the world that turns tragedy into humor. A very funny and heart-warming debut.”
— Books in Canada
Praise for Featherless Bipeds
“Featherless Bipeds remains at all times as tightly focused as the best short stories. . . Fans of live pop music will enjoy Scarsbrook’s wonderful evocations of the characters, venues, trials, and successes of such a career, both onstage and off.”