Discipline: Literature – fiction

Heather Birrell

Discipline: Literature – fiction
Region: Toronto, CANADA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2000
More: heatherbirrell.com
Canadian writer Heather Birrell is the author of two story collections, Mad Hope (one of the Globe and Mail‘s top 23 fiction picks for 2012) and I know you are but what am I?. Her work has been honored with the Journey Prize for short fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction. 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. Her essay “Further Up and Further In: The Last Battle Re-reading C.S. Lewis in the Wake of Mental Illness,” published in Canadian Notes and Queries Winter 2016 was a notable mention in Best American Essays 2017. 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, MacDowell, and Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle. Heather also works as a high school teacher and a creative writing instructor.

Studios

Chapman

Heather Birrell worked in the Chapman studio.

Chapman Studio was funded by Mrs. Alice Woodrough Chapman in memory of her husband, composer George Alexander Chapman. Symmetrically massed, the building is stuccoed on the exterior with a natural, unpainted cement. Its unusual half-timbered ornament consists of slender, knotty spruce poles painted a dark green color. A central, peak-roofed entrance porch appears on the north side…

Learn more