Johanna Skibsrud | |
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| Born | 1980 Meadowville, Nova Scotia |
| Occupation | novelist, poet |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Notable works | The Sentimentalists |
| Notable awards | Scotiabank Giller Prize 2010 The Sentimentalists |
Johanna Shively Skibsrud (born 1980) is a Canadian writer, whose debut novel The Sentimentalists won the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize. [1] [2]
Skibsrud has published two books of poetry, Late Nights with Wild Cowboys in 2008 and I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being in 2010. Late Nights with Wild Cowboys was a shortlisted nominee for the Gerald Lampert Award, [3] and I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being was a shortlisted nominee for the Atlantic Poetry Prize.
In 2009 Skibsrud's debut novel The Sentimentalists was published by Gaspereau Press. The novel won the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Skibsrud's Giller win also focused attention on the struggles of small press publishers. The book had been originally published by Gaspereau Press, a boutique firm based in Nova Scotia which is one of Canada's only book publishing companies that still binds and prints its own books, with the result that the firm had difficulty meeting the increased demand after Skibsrud's win was announced. [4] Chapters-Indigo, Canada's primary bookstore chain, did not have a single copy of the book in stock anywhere in Canada in the entire week of the Giller announcement. [4] However, the paper book's unavailability resulted in a significant increase in ebook sales; the ebook version of the novel quickly became the top-selling title in the Kobo ebookstore. [5] The company subsequently announced that it had sold the novel's trade paperback rights to Douglas & McIntyre, while it will continue to print a smaller run of the novel's original edition for book collectors. [6]
In spring 2011, The Sentimentalists was published in the United States by W. W. Norton & Company. The book has been translated, or is currently being translated, into five languages.
Skibsrud's first collection of short stories, This Will Be Difficult to Explain, and Other Stories, was first published in September 2011 by Hamish Hamilton Canada, with US and UK editions of the book appearing in spring 2012.
In 2014 Skibsrud's second novel, Quartet for the End of Time , was published by Hamish Hamilton. [7]
Skibsrud is a 2005 Master of Arts graduate from Concordia University's creative writing program; A version of The Sentimentalists was first written for her thesis. [8] She completed her Ph.D. in English Literature at the Université de Montréal in spring 2012 and currently holds a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona. [9]
A native of Meadowville, Nova Scotia, [10] Skibsrud currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. [11] [12]
Skibsrud is married to John Melillo, a professor at the University of Arizona. [13]
The Giller Prize is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries. The prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller, a former literary editor at the Toronto Star, and is awarded in November of each year along with a cash reward with the winner being presented by the previous year's winning author.
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Gaspereau Press is a Canadian book publishing company, based in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Established in 1997 by Andrew Steeves and Gary Dunfield, the company's philosophy emphasizes "making books that reinstate the importance of the book as a physical object", maintaining control over the design and the manufacturing quality of its titles as one of the few Canadian publishing houses that continues to print and bind its own books in-house.
The Sentimentalists is a novel by Canadian writer Johanna Skibsrud that was the winner of the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
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Quartet for the End of Time is a 2014 novel by Giller Prize–winning author Johanna Skibsrud. The novel takes its name and structure from Quatuor pour la fin du temps, a piece of chamber music by the French composer Olivier Messiaen.
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