Anne Michaels (1958‒ ) is a poet and novelist; she was born in Toronto, Ontario on 15 April to a Polish-Jewish father and Canadian mother. Growing up, Michaels played piano and violin in a youth orchestra, and has composed musical scores for the theatre. Michaels earned a BA in Honours English from the University of Toronto. She is now a thesis supervisor in the Department of English at the University, mentoring one creative writing student per year. She began her writing career with poetry, gaining traction with her works The Weight of Oranges (1986), Miner’s Pond (1991), and Skin Divers (1999). Michaels’s three poetry books were combined into one volume in Poems (2000). Michaels’s book Fugitive Pieces, her first novel, garnered national recognition; it was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Canadian Booksellers Association Author of the Year Award, and won the Trillium Prize, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Beatrice and Martin Fischer Award, and England’s Orange Prize. Fugitive Pieces was made into a motion picture in 2007. Michaels’s second book, The Winter Vault (2009), was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller prize, the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best Book, and the Trillium Book Award. Michaels’s books have been translated into more than forty-five languages, and have won many awards.
Sources
“About.” Anne Michaels. www.annemichaels.ca/bio/.
“Anne Michaels: Biography.” Canadian Poetry Online. University of Toronto Libraries, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca/michaels/.
Baird, Daniel. “Anne Michaels.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. 18 March 2007, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anne-michaels.
Crown, Sarah. “Anne Michaels, fugitive author.” The Guardian, 2 May 2009. www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/02/interview-anne-michaels.
Q&Q Staff. “Anne Michaels: Hiding in plain sight.” Quill and Quire, 2009-4. quillandquire.com/authors/hiding-in-plain-sight/.