Zoe Whittall

The Department of English is pleased to announce the Carol Shields Writer in Residence for Winter 2023: Zoe Whittall

The University of Winnipeg English department is thrilled to announce Zoe Whittall will be 2023 Carol Shields Writer In Residence (online) from February 27th to March 27th, 2023. To book writing consultations, please email z.whittall@uwinnipeg.ca. Zoe will be doing a reading and Q and A on March 09, 2023, at 7pm Winnipeg time (via Zoom) and will also be delivering the Carol Shields Memorial Lecture on March 17th, 2023 (via Zoom). Links to register are above.

The Carol Shields Writer-in-Residence Program at the University of Winnipeg was made possible by a generous donation from the Shields family. The program’s name honours the memory of Carol Shields, Pulitzer-prize winning novelist and Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg from 1996 to 2000. At Convocations, our students and their families were privileged to hear her wise and beautifully crafted addresses to the graduands. Carol was also a generous mentor to emerging writers, so this program is a fitting tribute to her. As former UW President Dr. Lloyd Axworthy has said, "Carol was enormously committed to cultivating young writers. Through the thoughtfulness and generosity that the Shields family has shown to the University, opportunities have been created for many more people and emerging writers to discover their creative voices."

Zoe Whittall's fifth novel The Fake is forthcoming in March 2023 with HarperCollins Canada and Penguin Random House U.S. Her fourth novel The Spectacular (Penguin Random House U.S./HarperCollins Canada) was published in 2021. The New York Times called it “a competent and highly readable testament to the strength of the maternal bond” and The Toronto Star called it “a  singularly impressive piece of fiction.” Her third novel The Best Kind of People was published in 2017 by Penguin Random House U.S. and is being adapted for limited series by director Sarah Polley, was shortlisted for The Scotiabank Giller Prize, named Indigo's #1 Book of 2016, and a best book of the year by Walrus Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Toronto Life, & The National Post. Her  second novel Holding Still for as Long as Possible (House of Anansi) won a Lambda literary award for trans fiction in 2011 and was a Stonewall Honor Book. Her debut novel Bottle Rocket Hearts won the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Award for Best Emerging LGBTQA+ novel. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy-Award winning comedy show Schitt’s Creek and The Baroness Von Sketch Show for which she won a 2018 Canadian Screen Award for Best Writing, Variety or Sketch Comedy, and was nominated again in 2019. Vogue Magazine called The Baroness Von Sketch Show "the best thing out of Canada since Ryan Gosling". She has published three volumes of poetry, most recently an anniversary edition of The Emily Valentine Poems. She was born on a sheep farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.