Audrey Thomas Biography

Canadian novelist and short story writer

Audrey Grace Thomas, OC (née Callahan; born 17 November 1935) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer who lives on Galiano Island, British Columbia. Her stories often have feminist themes and include exotic settings. She is a recipient of the Marian Engel Award.

Biography

Thomas was born 17 November 1935 in Binghamton, New York. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College in M*achusetts in 1957, then studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland before teaching in England. In 1959, she immigrated to Canada, where she received a Master of Arts degree from University of British Columbia in 1963. In 1994, she received an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University.

From 1964 to 1966, Thomas lived in Ghana, and some of her stories are set there and in other distant places.

She published her first story, "If One Green Bottle...", in 1967.

Thomas lived in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1980s, and wrote articles for Saturday Night Magazine.

Beginning in 1990, Thomas was a visiting professor at Concordia University in Montreal. She also spent time as writer-in-residence at the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and David Thompson University Centre.

In 2014, she published her eighteenth book, Local Customs.

Awards and honours

From 1984 to 1986, Thomas received the Canada-Scotland Writer's Literary Fellowship, and in 1987, she won the Marian Engel Award for her body of work. In 1989, she receive the Canada-Australia Literary Prize. In 2003, she won the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2008, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Bibliography

Novels

  • Mrs. Blood – 1970
  • Munchmeyer and Prospero on the Island – 1971
  • Songs My Mother Taught Me – 1973
  • Blown Figures – 1974
  • Latakia – 1979
  • Intertidal Life – 1984
  • Graven Images – 1993
  • Coming Down from Wa – 1995
  • Isobel Gunn – 1999
  • Tattycoram
  • Local Customs – 2014

Short stories

  • Ten Green Bottles – 1967
  • ladies and escorts – 1977
  • Real Mothers – 1981
  • Two in the Bush and Other Stories – 1981
  • Goodbye Harold, Good Luck – 1986
  • The Wild Blue Yonder – 1990
  • The Path of Totality – 2001

References

    External links

    • Audrey Thomas's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
    • The archives of Audrey Thomas (Thomas Audrey fonds, R11818) are held at Library and Archives Canada