Who
Canadian writer Heather Birrell is the author of two story collections, I know you are but what am I? and Mad Hope (one of the Globe and Mail‘s top 23 fiction picks for 2012). Her work has been honoured with the Journey Prize for short fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction and has been shortlisted for both National and Western Magazine Awards. Birrell’s stories have appeared in many North American journals and anthologies, including The New Quarterly, Descant, Hobart, and Toronto Noir.
“BriannaSusannaAlana”, Heather’s third story to be included in the annual Journey Prize Anthology, was awarded the prize in February 2007. Heather was fortunate enough to share the stage with writer and activist June Callwood (1924-2007) at the award ceremony.
Listen to Heather reading from ‘BriannaSusannaAlana’ at www.authorsaloud.com.
And listen to the dulcet-toned Miette read Heather’s story ‘Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning‘ from Mad Hope and ‘Trouble at Pow Crash Creek’ from I know you are but what am I? at www.miettecast.com.
As a book reviewer, Heather has contributed to such publications as the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Quill and Quire, Books in Canada and The Believer. She is also a fellow of several writers’ residencies: Spain’s Fundacion Valparaiso, the MacDowell Colony in the US, and Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle. In 2006, Heather conducted an on-line interview with a short story writer she has long admired, Deborah Eisenberg. You can find the text of that interview at bookninja.
Heather is now busy with a new collection and a novel about a tire factory, Cuba, teenaged love and a draft dodger. She also works as a high school teacher and a creative writing instructor. She does all of this – barely – in Toronto, where she lives with her husband, Charles Checketts, and their two daughters.