Charlotte Gill, 2008 - 2009 Canadian Writer-in-Residence
Charlotte Gill, 2008 - 2009 Canadian Writer-in-Residence: Photo by Jaya SurjadinataCharlotte Gill is the 2008-2009 Markin-Flanagan Canadian Writer-in-Residence. Gill will be in residence from August 15, 2008 to June 15, 2009.
Charlotte Gill was born a twin in London, England to an English mother and a Sikh father. In 1972 her parents moved with the family to Canada. They lived briefly in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia before moving to Toronto. She was raised there and in rural New York State, where her family settled in the late seventies. She returned to Canada to attend the University of Toronto.
As a student Gill spent her summers working as a tree planter in northern Ontario. After her graduation from the U of T, this tree planting occupation continued, taking her west to Alberta and remote sections of British Columbia. In nearly 20 years, Gill has planted more than a million trees over an area equivalent to 600 Manhattan city blocks. The unique subculture attendant to this intense, gritty labour is the topic of her current non-fiction project, a memoir titled Spade Life.
In 2000 Gill graduated from the MFA program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Her Masters thesis became her first book, Ladykiller, seven stories exploring some of the darker undercurrents of urban living. Ladykiller was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award and went on to win the Danuta Gleed Award, a national prize for best debut short story collection, and the B.C. Book Prize for fiction.
Gill’s work has appeared in many Canadian magazines. Her literary journalism has been nominated for National and Western Magazine Awards. Her short stories have been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories and have been broadcast on CBC Radio.
Click here to visit Charlotte's blog.
Contact Charlotte:
Charlotte Gill
Markin-Flanagan Canadian Writer-in-Residence
Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program
Faculty of Humanities, University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
mf@ucalgary.ca