Ms. January: Angie Abdou

Mr. February: Trevor Cole

Ms. March: Farzana Doctor

Mr. April: Dave Bidini

Ms. May: Miranda Hill

Mr. June: Steven Heighton

Ms. July: Yasuko Thanh

Mr. August: Terry Fallis

Ms. September: Sachiko Murakami

Mr. October: Vincent Lam

Ms. November: Saleema Nawaz

Mr. December: Yann Martel

 

 

 

Ms. January: Angie Abdou

Angie Abdou began writing fiction in 2000 and has since published three books. Anything Boys Can Do was praised by the Victoria Times Colonist for its original take on female sexuality. The Bone Cage, a novel about Olympic athletes, was the inaugural One Book, One Kootenay, as well as a 2011 Canada Reads finalist and the 2012 MacEwan Book of the Year. It is taught in university Sport Literature courses across the continent and topped CBC’s list of “Top Ten Sports Books.” Her newest novel, The Canterbury Trail (Brindle & Glass, 2011), is a dark comedy specifically about mountain culture and more generally about community and our relationship with the environment. The Canterbury Trail was a finalist for the Banff Mountain Book of the Year and won a 2012 IPPY, Gold Medal for Canada West. Angie was born and raised in Moose Jaw, SK. She currently lives in Fernie, BC, and teaches full-time at the College of the Rockies.

 

Mr. February: Trevor Cole

Trevor Cole’s writing career spans fiction and journalism. His first novel, Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life (2004), garnered enormous acclaim and was short-listed for a Governor General’s Literary award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book. His second novel, The Fearsome Particles (2006), grabbed a second Governor General’s award nomination (and, like Norman Bray, was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award). Cole’s third novel, Practical Jean (2010), published in Canada, the United States and Germany, was short-listed for the Rogers Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize, and won the 2011 Leacock Medal for Humour. As a magazine journalist, meanwhile, Cole’s in-depth profiles and investigations have won nine National Magazine Awards including three gold medals. He is also an experienced mentor of young writers, and the creator of AuthorsAloud.com, an online archive of audio readings by Canadian authors and poets.

 

 

 

 

Ms. March: Farzana Doctor

 

Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based author. Her first novel, Stealing Nasreen, received critical acclaim and earned a devoted readership upon its release in 2007.  Her most recent novel, Six Metres of Pavement, was named one of Now Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2011. It also won the Lambda Literary and was short-listed for the Toronto Book Award. Farzana was named as one of CBC Books’ “Ten Canadian Women Writers You Need to Read Now”. She is currently working on her third novel and co-curates the Brockton Writers Series.

 

 

 

Mr. April: Dave Bidini

 

Author and musician Dave Bidini is the only person to have been nominated for a Gemini, Genie and Juno as well CBC’s Canada Reads. A founding member of Rheostatics, he has written 12 books, including On a Cold Road, Tropic of Hockey, Around the World in 57 1/2 Gigs, and Home and Away. He has made two Gemini Award-nominated documentaries and his play, the Five Hole Stories, was staged by One Yellow Rabbit Performance Company, touring the country in 2008. His third book, Baseballissimo, is being developed for the screen by Jay Baruchel, and, in 2010, he won his third National Magazine Award, for “Travels in Narnia.” He writes a weekly column for the Saturday Post and, in 2011, he published the Toronto Book Award-nominated Writing Gordon Lightfoot. His latest book is ‘Keon and Me: My Search for the Lost Soul of the Leafs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. May: Miranda Hill

Miranda Hill is a writer of fiction and poetry. In 2011, she won The Writers’ Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her story, “Petitions to Saint Chronic.” Her collection of short fiction, Sleeping Funny, is published by Doubleday Canada. She is currently at work on a novel (Conduct, also for Doubleday Canada), a multi-generational story that weaves between Pittsburgh’s fine houses and steel mills and Muskoka’s cottage country.

Hill is also the founder and executive director of Project Bookmark Canada, an initiative that installs text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set.

Hill was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario and grew up in Alliston, Ontario—home of a potato festival, a car plant and Frederick Banting. She received a degree in Drama from Queen’s University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Today, she writes and reads in Hamilton, Ontario where she lives with her husband, writer Lawrence Hill, and their children.

 

 

Mr. June: Steven Heighton

Steven Heighton‘s most recent books are The Dead Are More Visible (stories: May 2012), Workbook: memos & dispatches on

writing (October 2011), the novel Every Lost Country (May 2010) and the poetry collection Patient Frame (April 2010). He is also the author of the novel Afterlands, which appeared in six countries, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and was a “best of year” selection in ten publications in Canada, the USA, and the UK. The book has recently been optioned for film. He has also published The Shadow Boxer—a Canadian bestseller and a Publishers’ Weekly Book of the Year for 2002—which appeared in five countries. His other fiction books are the story collections Flight Paths of the Emperor and On earth as it is, while his poetry collections include The Ecstasy of Skeptics and The Address Book.

His fiction and poetry have been translated into ten languages, have appeared in London Review of Books, Zoetrope: All-Story, Tin House, Poetry, Brick, The Independent, TLR, London Magazine, Malahat Review, Agni, The Walrus, Poetry London and Revue Europe, have been internationally anthologised (Best English Stories, Best of Best English Stories, Best American Poetry (2012), The Minerva Book of Stories and others) and have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Journey Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award. Heighton has received the Gerald Lampert Award, the 2010 K.M. Hunter Award (literature), the 2011 P.K. Page Founders’ Award, The Petra Kenney Prize, the Air Canada Award, and four gold National Magazine Awards. He has been the writer-in-residence at Concordia University; at Massey College, U of T; at McArthur College, Queen’s University; at the University of Ottawa; at CMR/RMC, and is the 2013 Mordecai Richler Writer in Residence at McGill University. He has taught at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in the writing program at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Heighton is also a fiction reviewer for the New York Times Book Review.

 

 

Ms. July: Yasuko Thanh

 

Yasuko Thanh is the winner of the 2009 Journey Prize for the best short story published in Canada.  Her collection Floating Like the Dead (M&S, 2012) became a Quill and Quire Best Books of the Year selection and was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. She was a finalist for the Future Generations Millennium Prize, the Hudson Prize, and the David Adams Richards Prize, which recognizes unpublished manuscripts.  She recently received her MFA from UVic.  She has travelled widely and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Victoria, BC.

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. August: Terry Fallis

Terry Fallis is the author of The Best Laid Plans, winner of the 2008 Leacock Medal for Humour, and the 2011 CBC Canada Reads crown as the “essential Canadian novel of the decade.” It is now in development by CBC Television as a six-part miniseries, and by Touchstone Theatre as a stage musical. The sequel, The High Road, published in 2010, was a finalist for the 2011 Leacock Medal. His third novel, Up and Down, hit bookstores in September 2012 and debuted on the Globe and Mail bestsellers list. All three of his novels are published by McClelland & Stewart.

He blogs at www.terryfallis.com and his Twitter handle is @TerryFallis.

 

 

Ms. September: Sachiko Murakami

Sachiko Murakami is the author of the poetry collections The Invisibility Exhibit (Talonbooks, 2008), a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and Rebuild (Talonbooks, 2011). She initiated the online collaborative poetry projects Project Rebuild and Powell Street Henko. Her current project is GET ME OUT OF HERE. She lives in Toronto where she is Poetry Editor for Insomniac Press.

 

 

 

 

Mr. October: Vincent Lam

 

Dr. Vincent Lam is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam, and was born in Canada. Dr. Lam did his medical training in Toronto, where he is an emergency physician. Dr. Lam’s first book, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has been adapted for television and broadcast on HBO Canada. Dr. Lam’s biography of Tommy Douglas is part of the Extraordinary Canadians series of biographies. The Headmaster’s Wager, Dr. Lam’s first novel, about a Chinese compulsive gambler and headmaster of an English school in Saigon during the Vietnam War, was shortlisted for the 2012 Governor General’s Prize.

 

 

 

 

 

Ms. November: Saleema Nawaz

 

Born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Saleema Nawaz’s short fiction has been published in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, PRISM International, Grain, and The New Quarterly, and her short story “My Three Girls” was the winner of the 2008 Writers’ Trust of Canada / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.  Her short-story collection, Mother Superior, was published by Freehand Books in 2008, and her first novel, Bone and Bread, will be released by House of Anansi Press in March 2013.  Saleema currently lives in Montreal, Quebec.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. December: Yann Martel

 

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963. After studying philosophy at university, he worked at odd jobs and travelled before turning to writing. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed 2002 Man Booker Prize-wining novel Life of Pi, which has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, was translated into thirty-eight languages, and has been adapted for film by Ang Lee. His most recent novel, Beatrice and Virgil, has been sold to twenty-nine territories. He is also the author of What is Stephen Harper Reading?, a collection of letters to the Prime Minister of Canada. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.