John H. Vaillant | |
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 Vaillant at the 2015 Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | 1962 (age 60–61) Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Nationality | Canadian/American |
John Vaillant (born 1962) is an American-Canadian writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic , and Outside . He has written both non-fiction and fiction books.
Vaillant was born and raised in Massachusetts and has lived in Vancouver since 1998. [1] He is the son of Harvard psychiatrist and social scientist George Eman Vaillant, and grandson to the famed archaeologist George Clapp Vaillant. He is married to the potter, writer and anthropologist Nora Walsh. [2]
Vaillant's first book, The Golden Spruce, [3] dealt with the felling of the Golden Spruce or Kiidk'yaas on Haida Gwaii by Grant Hadwin. It was a bestseller and won a number of awards.
In 2010, he published The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival about a man-eating tiger incident that took place in 1997, in Russia's Far Eastern Primorsky Krai, where most of the world's Amur tigers live. It was a bestseller and won a number of awards before being translated into 16 languages. Film rights were optioned by Brad Pitt's film company, Plan B.[ citation needed ]
In 2015, Vaillant published The Jaguar's Children, a novel about an undocumented Mexican immigrant trapped inside the empty tank of a water truck that has been abandoned in the desert by human smugglers. The novel was longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Prize and the Kirkus Fiction Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2015 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. [4] The Jaguar's Children received positive reviews from the New York Times and NPR. [5] [6]
Vaillant's fourth book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, [7] was published in 2023. It follows the events and aftermath of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, which caused billions of dollars worth of damage and destroyed around 2400 homes and forced the evacuation of over 80,000 people, [8] and describes the anthropological history between humans and fire, how it has shaped our societies, and how it now threatens them in the context of climate change. [9] Fire Weather came out June 6, 2023, which opinion writer David Wallace-Wells of The New York Times said was, “unfortunately, exquisitely timed.” [10] The book’s release coincided with the start of several days of hazardous smoke levels and a thick yellowish haze across the eastern United States due to profuse smoke plumes from Canadian wildfires that drifted south. Fire Weather was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction, [11] and shortlisted for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. [12] It was awarded Britain's £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in November 2023. [13]
Vaillant is the author of four books:
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, formerly known as the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, is a Canadian literary award presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada after an annual juried competition of works submitted by publishers. Alongside the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and the Giller Prize, it is considered one of the three main awards for Canadian fiction in English. Its eligibility criteria allow for it to garland collections of short stories as well as novels; works that were originally written and published in French are also eligible for the award when they appear in English translation.
The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the best nonfiction book on Canadian political and social issues. It has been presented annually in Ottawa at the Writers’ Trust Politics and the Pen gala since 2000, superseding the organization's defunct Gordon Montador Award.
The Writers' Trust of Canada is a registered charity which provides financial support to Canadian writers.
The Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize was a Canadian literary award, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to a work judged as the year's best work of biography, autobiography or personal memoir by a Canadian writer.
The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to the best work of non-fiction by a Canadian writer.
Elizabeth Grace Hay is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.
Kathleen Winter is an English-Canadian short story writer and novelist.
Merrily Weisbord is a Canadian literary non-fiction writer, documentary screenwriter and broadcaster. Her 2010 book The Love Queen of Malabar, a memoir of her longtime friendship with the late Indian writer Kamala Das, was a finalist for the 2010 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the QWF Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. Her other books include Dogs with Jobs, The Valour and the Horror, Our Future Selves: Love, Life, Sex and Aging and The Strangest Dream.
Kamal Al-Solaylee is a Canadian journalist, who published his debut book, Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, in 2012. He is currently director of the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at Canada's University of British Columbia.
Charlotte Gill is a Canadian fiction and non-fiction writer.
Katherine Rundell is an English author and academic. She is the author of Rooftoppers, which in 2015 won both the overall Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story, and was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal. She is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and has appeared as an expert guest on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Poetry Please, Seriously.... and Private Passions.
Andrew Steinmetz is a Canadian writer, editor and musician.
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed is a book by American author John Vaillant. It was his first book, published in May 2005.
Darrel J. McLeod is a Cree writer from Canada. His memoir Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, an account of his childhood experience of physical and sexual abuse, won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2018 Governor General's Awards and was a shortlisted finalist for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize.
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine is an autobiographical book by Canadian doctor James Maskalyk about his work and reflections on working in emergency departments in St Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as work in Cambodia and Bolivia.
James Maskalyk is a Canadian emergency medicine physician, author, and meditation teacher.
Thomas Page McBee is an American transgender journalist, television writer, and amateur boxer. He was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, which he discusses in Amateur. His first book, Man Alive, won a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.
Angela Sterritt is a Canadian journalist of the Gitxsan Nation, who was a multi-platform reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Vancouver, British Columbia for more than 10 years. She is most noted as a Canadian Screen Award winner for Best Local Reporter at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021, for her story on a Heiltsuk grandfather and granddaughter who were wrongfully accused of bank fraud when trying to open the young girl's first bank account.
Emily Urquhart is a Canadian writer. She is most noted for her 2022 book Ordinary Wonder Tales, which was a shortlisted finalist for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
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