NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS


Margaret Atwood is the author of more than twenty-five books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent novel is The Blind Assassin. She lives in Toronto.

Murray Bail lives in Sydney, Australia. His novel Eucalyptus won the 1999 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book.

Russell Banks’s most recent work is a collection of stories called The Angel on the Roof. His many novels include Cloudsplitter and The Sweet Hereafter, which was made into a feature film directed by Atom Egoyan. He lives in upstate New York.

Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography: Book I of Information Theory, a pataphysical encyclopedia, nominated in 1994 for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Bök is currently completing work on a univocal lipogram, entitled Eunoia. He lives in Toronto.

Roo Borson has published ten books of poetry, the most recent being Introduction to the Introduction to Wang Wei, a collaborative work by Pain Not Bread (Roo Borson, Kim Maltman, Andy Patton). Also an occasional essayist, she lives in Toronto.

Robert Boyers is editor of the quarterly Salmagundi, Tisch Professor of Arts and Letters at Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, New York) and Director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute. He is the author of six critical books, and reviews books frequently for The New Republic.

Brian Brett is the author of many books, of which the most recent are Poems: New and Selected, Allegories of Love and Disaster and The Colour of Bones in a Stream. He has just completed his latest novel, Coyote Sunset. He lives on a farm on Salt Spring Island.

Natalee Caple is the author of one novel, The Plight of Happy People in an Ordinary World; one short-story collection, The Heart Is Its Own Reason; and one book of poetry, A More Tender Ocean. She lives in Toronto.

Anne Carson lives in Canada.

George Elliott Clarke is an Africadian (African-Canadian) poet, playwright, librettist and screenwriter. His latest works include Beatrice Chancy, which is both a play and an opera, and Gold Indigoes, a chapbook of American lyrics.

Karen Connelly is the author of several books of poetry and nonfiction. She is the recipient of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry and the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction. Her most recent book of poetry is The Border Surrounds Us. She is currently writing her first novel, The Lizard Cage.

Carole Corbeil is a novelist and arts journalist born in Montreal and now living in Toronto. She is also the author of Voice-over, and her most recent book is In the Wings, published in 1998.

Robert Creeley edited the renowned Black Mountain Review years ago for the college of that name in North Carolina. He was New York State Poet (1989–91), a proud feat for a New Englander and even more so for one who has spent his last thirty-three years more or less in Buffalo. His recent books are Life & Death, So There and Day Book of a Virtual Poet.

Sarah Ellis never grew out of reading children’s books. With luck and guile she managed to turn this guilty secret into a patchwork career involving fiction writing, reviewing, lecturing, storytelling and working as a librarian—all with an emphasis on children’s literature. Her latest book is From Reader to Writer: Teaching Writing Through Classic Children’s Books.

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of the novel The Virgin Suicides. He is currently a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Douglas Fetherling works in Toronto as a poet, fiction writer, teacher and small-press publisher. His latest book is Madagascar: Poems & Translations.

Charles Foran is the author of five books, including Butterfly Lovers and The Story of My Life (So Far). An award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster who lived in China for three years, he now lives in Peterborough.

Helen Garner is an Australian whose published work includes novels, short stories, journalism and nonfiction. Her most recent books are The First Stone, a best-selling account of a university sexual harassment case, and True Stories, her selected journalism. She lives in Melbourne.

Wayne Grady is a writer and translator living in the country north of Kingston, Ontario. He is also the author of The Dinosaur Project and The Quiet Limit of the World, and his most recent book is The Bone Museum: Travels in the Lost Worlds of Dinosaurs and Birds.

Githa Hariharan’s first novel, The Thousand Faces of Night, was published in 1992 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. She has also published a collection of short stories, The Art of Dying, and a novel, The Ghosts of Vasu Master. Her most recent novel, When Dreams Travel, was published in 1999.

Diana Hartog has published three award-winning books of poetry—Matinee Light, Candy from Strangers and Polite to Bees—and most recently a novel, The Photographer’s Sweethearts.

Steven Heighton is an award-winning poet and fiction writer. His first novel, The Shadow Boxer, was published in 2000. Among his other books are Flight Paths of the Emperor, On earth as it is and The Ecstasy of Skeptics. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Michael Helm’s novel The Projectionist was published in 1997, and was a finalist for the Giller Prize.

Greg Hollingshead’s recent books are The Healer, a novel, and the short-story collection The Roaring Girl, which won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. He lives in Edmonton.

Anne Holzman is a freelance writer and a student in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Isabel Huggan is the author of two collections of short stories, The Elizabeth Stories and You Never Know. She was born in Kitchener, Ontario, but now lives in France, and is working on her third collection.

Laird Hunt is the author of Dear Sweetheart and the forthcoming short novel The Paris Stories (small sicknesses of love). He lives in New York City.

Nancy Huston writes both in French and English. Among her novels are Histoire d’Omaya, The Goldberg Variations and The Mark of the Angel. She lives in Paris.

Siri Hustvedt is a novelist, most recently of The Enchantment of Lily Dahl and The Blindfold. She is also the author of Yonder, a collection of essays. She lives in New York.

John Winslow Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. He is the author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Cider House Rules and nine novels, among them A Widow for One Year, The Hotel New Hampshire, The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany and A Son of the Circus. He lives in Toronto and southern Vermont.

Pico Iyer is the author of six books, most recently The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home, a collection of essays called Tropical Classical, and Cuba and the Night, a novel. He lives in Japan and California.

Gordon Johnston was born and raised in Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior. He studied at the University of Toronto and Harvard, and has taught Canadian Poetry and Native Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, for twenty-eight years. His novel, Inscription Rock, was published in 1981.

Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Newfoundland and now lives in Toronto. Among his recent works are The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and Baltimore’s Mansion, which won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction. His 1994 novel, Human Amusements, is about to be made into a feature film, as was his earlier novel, The Divine Ryans.

Janice Kulyk Keefer lives in Toronto. Her latest books are Marrying the Sea, which won the CAA Best Book of Poetry for 1998, and Honey and Ashes, a Story of Family.

Wendy Lesser, the founding editor of The Threepenny Review, is the author of The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters, His Other Half: Men Looking at Women Through Art and Pictures at an Execution. She has won prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Philip Levine is the author of more than ten collections of poetry, including They Feed They Lion, The Mercy and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Simple Truth. He lives in Fresno, California.

Alan Lightman is a novelist, essayist, physicist and educator—currently a professor of humanities and senior lecturer in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of the American Institute of Physics Andrew Gemant Award for linking science to the humanities. His novels include The Diagnosis, Einstein’s Dreams and Good Benito.

Derek Lundy trained as a lawyer but makes his living as a writer. He is the author of Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World’s Most Dangerous Waters, and Scott Turow: Meeting the Enemy. He lives in Toronto, where he is writing a book about a square-rigger voyage round Cape Horn.

David Malouf is the author of ten novels, including Remembering Babylon, which was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 1993, and The Conversations at Curlow Creek. His latest book is Dream Stuff, a collection of short fiction. Malouf lives in Sydney.

Javier Marías’s collection of short stories, When I Was Mortal, was just published in English by New Directions. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages. Marías lives in Madrid.

Harry Mathews is the author, most recently, of The Journalist, which won the Americas Award in Literature for the best work of fiction. He is a novelist, poet and essayist, and divides his time between New York and Paris.

W. S. Merwin is the author of over twelve collections of poetry, the most recent of which are The Folding Cliffs, The River Sound, East Window, a collection of Asian translations, and Purgatorio, a translation of the central section of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He lives in Hawaii.

Anchee Min’s most recent novel is Becoming Madame Mao. She is also the author of Red Azalea: A True Story of Life and Love in China and of Katherine, a novel. She lives in California.

Jim Moore lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His most recent book of poems is The Long Experience of Love. He is currently finishing a new collection of poems.

Erin Mouré’s most recent books of poetry are A Frame of the Book (also called The Frame of a Book), Search Procedures and Pillage Laud. She lives in Montreal, where she works as a translator.

Susan Musgrave‘s most recent book of poetry is What the Small Day Cannot Hold: Collected Poems 1970–1985. She has just published her third novel, Cargo of Orchids.

Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Canada in 1962. He is the author of The English Patient (for which he received both the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Booker Prize), In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and, most recently, Anil’s Ghost. He is also the author of a memoir and several collections of poetry, the latest being Handwriting. He lives in Toronto and is a contributing editor to Brick magazine.

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, grew up in England, and now divides his time between New York and London. He is the author of six novels, most recently The Nature of Blood, and two works of nonfiction, including The European Tribe. His awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Cassandra Pybus is one of Australia’s most admired nonfiction writers. Her latest book, The Devil and James McAuley, won the National Non-fiction Award at the 2000 Adelaide Festival. Her previous books include Community of Thieves and The White Rajas of Sarawak.

Andrew Pyper is the author of the novel Lost Girls, as well as Kiss Me, a collection of short stories. He lives in Toronto.

Michael Redhill lives and works in Toronto, where he is the managing editor of Brick. His first novel, Martin Sloane, will be published in 2001, as will his fifth collection of poetry, Light-crossing.

Bill Richardson is a bestselling writer and broadcaster, currently the host of “Richardson’s Roundup” on CBC Radio One. His books include Scorned & Beloved: Dead of Winter Meetings with Canadian Eccentrics, The Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast and, most recently, After Hamelin, his first book for children.

Eden Robinson is a Haisla/Heiltsuk writer, the author of Monkey Beach, a coming-of-age novel set in Kitamaat, B.C., and Traplines, a collection of short stories. She was recently Writer-in-Residence at the Whitehorse Public Library in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

Leon Rooke’s latest novel is The Fall of Gravity. His other novels include Fat Woman and Shakespeare’s Dog, for which he won a Governor General’s Award, and A Good Baby, which was recently made into a feature film.

Jane Rule was born in New Jersey in 1931 and has lived on Canada’s west coast since 1956. She is the author of many books, most recently After the Fire and Memory Board, as well as the classic lesbian novel Desert of the Heart, the basis for the movie Desert Hearts.

Joanna Scott is the author of five novels, including Make Believe, The Manikin and Arrogance, and a collection of stories, Various Antidotes. She lives in Rochester, NY.

Sarah Sheard is a fiction writer living in Toronto. Her third novel, The Hypnotist, was preceded by Almost Japanese and The Swing Era.

Eleni Sikelianos is the author of to speak while dreaming, The Lover’s Numbers and The Book of Tendons. Forthcoming is Blue Guide and Of Sun, Of History, Of Seeing. She has been conferred a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry, the James D. Phelan Award for California-born writers, and several Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Writing. Though she makes her home in New York, she is currently working on a writing project as a Fulbright Fellow in Greece.

Sam Solecki is Professor of English at the University of Toronto. He is a former editor of The Canadian Forum, and his most recent book is The Last Canadian Poet: An Essay on Al Purdy.

Esta Spalding is a poet, most recently of Lost August. She lives in Vancouver, where she writes for film and television, and is a contributing editor to Brick.

Linda Spalding is the editor and publisher of Brick, as well as the author of the novels Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife and the forthcoming Mere, cowritten with Esta Spalding. Her most recent book is The Follow, a work of nonfiction.

Lawrence Sutin is the author of Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick; Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance; and two recently published books, A Postcard Memoir and Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley.

Sharon Thesen’s latest collection of poetry is A Pair of Scissors. Also recently published are Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff: A Modern Correspondence (coedited with Ralph Maud), and News & Smoke, a volume of Thesen’s selected poems, which came out in 1999.

Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955 and lives in Dublin. His four novels include The Heather Blazing (1992) and The Black-water Lightship, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1999.

Lola Lemire Tostevin has published five collections of poetry, one collection of essays and a novel, Frog Moon. Her second novel, The Jasmine Man, is forthcoming. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Michael Turner‘s books include Company Town, Hard Core Logo, American Whiskey Bar and, most recently, The Pornographer’s Poem. He lives in Vancouver.

Seán Virgo was born in Malta in 1940, raised in South Africa, Ireland and the UK, and has been living in Canada for over thirty years. He has published four books of poetry to date, four works of short fiction and one novel, Selakhi. He currently lives in southern Saskatchewan.

Eleanor Wachtel is a journalist and broadcaster. She has been the host of CBC Radio’s “Writers & Company” since its inception in 1990. Two selections of her interviews have been published: Writers & Company and More Writers & Company. She is also the host of CBC Radio’s “The Arts Today” and the coeditor of Language in Her Eyes and The Expo Story. She lives in Toronto.

Born in Winnipeg, Darren Wershler-Henry lives and works as a writer, editor and critic in Toronto. He is the author of two books of poetry, NICHOLODEON: a book of lowerglyphs and the tapeworm foundry, and the coauthor of several books about the Internet.

Edmund White was born in Cincinnati in 1940. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Caracole, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples and his most recent work, The Married Man. He lives in New York City.

Rudy Wiebe is the author of several short story collections and eight novels, including The Temptations of Big Bear and A Discovery of Strangers. His most recent book is the award-winning nonfiction book Stolen Life, which tells the life story of his coauthor Yvonne Johnson. He lives in Edmonton.

C. K. Williams’s most recent books of poetry are The Vigil, published in 1997, and Repair, published in 1999, which won the Pulitzer Prize. His other works include a book of essays, Poetry and Consciousness, and a book of autobiographical meditation, Misgivings. A collection of his poems on love, Love About Love, is forthcoming. C. K. Williams teaches in the writing program at Princeton University.

Michael Winter is the author of One Last Good Look, a collection of stories, and This All Happened, a genre-defying work he calls a “journal-a-clef.” Michael Winter lives and writes in Toronto and St. John’s.

Ronald Wright was born in England and lives in Ontario. His books include Stolen Continents, Time Among the Maya and, most recently, the dystopian novel A Scientific Romance, which was chosen a book of the year in three countries and won Britain’s David Higham Prize for Fiction.