Frances Greenslade

Last updated

Frances Greenslade is a Canadian writer born 1961 in St. Catharines, Ontario, where she grew up with four sisters and one brother playing among the orchards of the Niagara Peninsula. The family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, when she was ten. Greenslade earned a degree in English at the University of Winnipeg before moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she completed her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in 1992. In 2005 Frances and her family moved to Penticton, in the southern Okanagan, where her love of British Columbia's landscape flourished and was a source of inspiration in writing Shelter, her first novel. [1] Greenslade now lives in Penticton, British Columbia, where she teaches English Literature at Okanagan College and is working on a new novel called Sing a Worried Song, set in rural Manitoba and Bombay, India in the 1970s. [2]

Contents

Writing

Shelter (Random House Canada 2012) is Greenslade's first novel and was published as part of Knopf and Random House Canada’s renowned New Face of Fiction program. [3] Greenslade says of the book during an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, "Shelter looks at the expectations we have of our mothers, our first shelter, and the shock that comes when we realize they are more than just our mothers, but women with lives that don't always include us." [4] The National Post called it, "a slow, quiet, addictive read. Once you get caught, you find yourself caring about these characters, wanting to know what they will do next, how they will survive" [5] and the Toronto Star said, "Shelter is a beating heart of a book, alive with Greenslade’s fierce imagination, her acute descriptions of the natural world, her sure hand with narrative." [6] Shelter was shortlisted for the Ontario Library Association’s 2012 Evergreen Awards and was named one of the best books of 2012 by the United Kingdom book chain, Waterstones. [7]

Greenslade is also the author of two non-fiction books, By the Secret Ladder: A Mother's Initiation (Penguin 2007) [8] and A Pilgrim in Ireland: A Quest for Home (Penguin, 2002). [9] A Pilgrim in Ireland: A Quest for Home was awarded the 2003 Saskatchewan Book Award for non-fiction. Quill & Quire reviewed it as "Rich with research and anecdote, the book functions as a primer to Irish lore, the peculiarities of Irish Catholicism, and to Irish history." [10]

Greenslade's work has also appeared in Grain , NeWest Review, TV Guide , and Room . [11]

Related Research Articles

Margaret Buffie is an award-winning Canadian children's author.

Laurali Rose "Bunny" Wright was a Canadian writer of mainstream fiction and mystery novels. Many of her stories are set on the coast of British Columbia.

Kevin Chong is a Canadian author. Born in Hong Kong, Chong studied at the University of British Columbia and Columbia University, where he received an MFA in fiction writing.

<i>We All Fall Down</i> (Walters novel) book by Eric Walters

We All Fall Down is a novel by Canadian author Eric Walters, published in 2006 by Random House of Canada. The story follows Will, a ninth-grade student, spending a day with his father at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It was awarded the Red Maple Award in 2007 and was an honor book for the 2008 Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Award.

Robert J. Wiersema is a Canadian writer. Since 2006, he's published two novels, a novella and a non-fiction book about Bruce Springsteen.

Deborah Ellis Canadian author

Deborah Ellis is a Canadian author and activist.

Edith Lambert Sharp was a Canadian professional woman, writing teacher, and writer. She won the annual Governor General's Award for juvenile fiction in 1958, recognizing the historical novel Nkwala as the year's best Canadian book.

<i>Before I Wake</i> (Wiersema novel) book by Robert Wiersema

Before I Wake (2006) is a novel by Robert J. Wiersema. The events of the novel take place in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Dave Godfrey was a Canadian writer and publisher. His novel The New Ancestors won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction in 1970.

Jen Sookfong Lee is a Chinese Canadian broadcaster and novelist. A radio personality for CBC Radio One in Vancouver, British Columbia, she contributes a regular literary segment called "Westcoast Words" to On the Coast and All Points West, the network's local programs in Vancouver and Victoria, and is also a regular contributor to the national network program The Next Chapter. In the CBC's national Canada Reads competition in 2009, she defended Brian Francis's novel Fruit.

Martha Ruth Brooks is a Canadian writer of plays, novels, and short fiction. Her young adult novel True Confessions of a Heartless Girl won the Governor General's Award for English language children's literature in 2002.

Ian Williams is a Canadian poet and fiction writer.

Anakana Schofield Canadian writer

Anakana Schofield is an Irish-Canadian author, who won the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the Debut-Litzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for her debut novel Malarky. Born in England to an Irish mother, she lived in London and in Dublin, Ireland until moving to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1999. The novel was also a shortlisted nominee for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Alix Hawley is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. Her novel, All True Not a Lie In It, won the amazon.ca First Novel Award in 2015.

Valerie Compton is a Canadian writer and journalist. Compton grew up in Bangor, Prince Edward Island and studied at the University of King's College. She has lived in Edmonton, Calgary, and Rothesay, New Brunswick. Compton has been writing short fiction for over twenty years, has written one novel, writes nonfiction articles, and works as a freelance editor and mentor to emerging writers. She now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Valerie Fortney is a Canadian journalist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has a successful career in broadcasting, magazines, and newspapers. Fortney was a regular contributor in the 1990s to the popular CBC Radio show Basic Black, and served as a frequent commentator for CBC Newsworld. Her feature writing has appeared across North America and around the world, in publications such as Chatelaine, the Los Angeles Times and Reader’s Digest International. In the 1990s, she was the founding editor of Avenue magazine, a Calgary magazine named Best New Magazine at the 1997 National Magazine Awards. The magazine won several other regional and national awards during her tenure. A columnist and feature writer at the Calgary Herald since 1998. Valerie has been nominated twice for National Newspaper Awards: in 2001, for Spot Reporting for her feature work on the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and in 2005, for Investigations for her work on a special series focusing on India's abandoned brides, titled Abandoned Brides: Canada’s Shame, India’s Sorrow. The series went on to win the Daniel Pearl award for print journalism, beating out The New York Times and Chicago Tribune; the UK-based Commonwealth Writers' Union Words and Pictures award; and the B.C.-based Webster award for best news reporting.

<i>Muse</i> (novel) novel

Muse is a 2013 novel by the Canadian author Mary Novik. It is set in 14th century Avignon.. The book follows Solange, a fictional character based on Laura de Noves, supposedly the mistress of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch and the unnamed mother of his children.

Carrie Mac is a Canadian author and illustrator specializing in young adult (YA) fiction. She is a winner of the CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, and the Arthur Ellis Award, as well as various other awards and recognitions.

Jessica Dee Humphreys Canadian writer

Jessica Dee Humphreys is a Canadian writer and researcher specializing in international humanitarian, military, and children's issues. Co-author of two books with Roméo Dallaire, she has also published a graphic novel for children, Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls are Used in War. She is currently writing a new book on global girls' rights and the UN International Day of the Girl Child, to be published in 2020. As an author, she has been collected by libraries, and her work has appeared in periodicals such as The Globe and Mail, the New York Times, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action magazine, and The Beaver, Canada's History Magazine.

<i>A Year of Lesser</i>

A Year of Lesser is the first novel of Canadian author David Bergen. It was published in 1996 by HarperCollins in Canada and the United States. The novel won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award in 1996.

References

  1. Shelter by Frances Greenslade, Random House Canada
  2. Arts Department English Faculty, Okanagan College
  3. New Face of Fiction Program, Random House Canada
  4. Out of Town Authors: Frances Greenslade, Winnipeg Free Press
  5. Open Book : Shelter by Frances Greenslade Archived 2011-08-27 at the Library of Congress Web Archives, National Post
  6. Review of Shelter by Frances Greenslade, The Star
  7. Frances Greenslade's Shelter Named one of the Best of 2012 by UK Book Chain Waterstones, The Star
  8. By the Secret Ladder: A Mother's Initiation, Amazon.ca
  9. A Pilgrim in Ireland: A Quest for Home, Amazon.ca
  10. Review of A Pilgrim in Ireland: A Quest for Home, Quill & Quire
  11. FrancesGreenslade.com
  1. Book Trailer for Shelter
  2. Quill & Quire Review of Shelter