Anne Simpson

For those of a similar name, see Ann Simpson (disambiguation).

Anne Simpson is a Canadian poet, novelist,artist and essayist.

Career

Simpson received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Queen’s University, and graduated in Fine Arts from OCAD University (formerly the Ontario College of Art). Subsequently, she worked as a CUSO volunteer English teacher for two years in Nigeria. She teaches part-time at St. Francis Xavier University, where she established the Writing Centre.

Poetry and Writings

Simpson was the co-winner of the 1997 Journey Prize, awarded for her short story Dreaming Snow. Her second collection of poetry, Loop (McClelland & Stewart, 2003), was the winner of the 2004 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. Loop contains many poems composed in sequences, including notably a poetic demonstration of 'Mobius strip', the collection has also been reviewed as containing "poems about history’s nightmares [as] Simpson conducts exhumations and postmortems, and tracks the scars of the human record".

Simpson's other poetry collections include Light Falls Through You (McClelland & Stewart, 2000), winner of the Gerald Lampert Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize, Quick (McClelland & Stewart, 2007), winner of the Pat Lowther Award, and Is (McClelland & Stewart, 2011) in which Simpson 'negotiates an ever changing path between language and structure'.

Simpson has also has written two novels: Canterbury Beach (Penguin, 2001) and Falling (McClelland & Stewart, 2008), which was a Canadian bestseller and winner of the Dartmouth Fiction Award. It was long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has also written a book of essays on poetics, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness (Gaspereau, 2009).

Simpson has been the writer-in-residence at a number of institutions, including the University of New Brunswick, the Medical Humanities Program at Dalhousie University, the Saskatoon Public Library, the University of Prince Edward Island, Dalhousie University, and Memorial University in St. John's, NL. She has also been a faculty member at the Banff Centre. She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Bibliography

Poetry

• Light Falls Through You - 2000 (winner of the Gerald Lampert Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize) ISBN 0-7710-8077-8
• Loop - 2003 (shortlisted for the 2003 Governor General's Award, winner of the 2004 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize) ISBN 0-7710-8075-1
• Quick - 2007 ISBN 0-7710-8091-3 (winner of the 2008 Pat Lowther Award)
• Is - 2011 ISBN 978-0-7710-8051-7

Novels

• Canterbury Beach - 2001 (shortlisted for the Thomas Head Raddall Award) ISBN 0-670-89484-2
• Falling - 2008 ISBN 978-0-7710-8090-6

Essays

• A Ragged Pen: Essays on Poetry & Memory - 2006 Gaspereau Press ISBN 978-1-55447-030-3
• The Marram Grass: Poetry & Otherness - 2009 Gaspereau Press ISBN 978-1-55447-071-6

External links

• Griffin Poetry Prize biography, poetry reading extract and citation
• Seven small poems 2003- Arts & Opinion Vol 2 no 4
• Example of Simpson's poetry- 'Orpheus afterwards'
• Examples of Simpson's Art
• Simpson writing website
• Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia Biography