WGA Virtual Writer in Residence

The Virtual Writer-in-Residence program launched at the start of January and will continue through to the end of May. WGA Members are invited to request appointments with the VWiR using the form below.

GAIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’s international bestsellers, The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees were both finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, among other awards. A Recipe for Bees was also nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Spawning Grounds was nominated for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award, and was short-listed for the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for fiction. Her very first book, The Miss Hereford Stories, was short-listed for the Stephen Leacock Humour Award. Her new novel, The Almost Wife, a commercial thriller, hit the Canadian bestseller lists.

Gail also writes young adult and hi-lo books for the educational market. Her book Iggy’s World was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and shortlisted for the Chocolate Lily Book Awards. The Ride Home was short-listed for a BC and Yukon Book Prize (the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize), as well as the Red Cedar Fiction Award and the Chocolate Lily Book Award. Gail began her career as a poet and short-story writer, with works published in many literary magazines including Queen’s Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Prism International, Canadian Fiction Magazine, Prairie Fire, and Room of One’s Own. As a young woman, she worked as a small-town newspaper reporter, photographer and cartoonist, and throughout the years her non-fiction pieces have been published in many publications including The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, House and Home, Quill and Quire, Read Magazine, and Western Living. A Chatelaine piece was short-listed in the National Magazine Awards.

Gail taught in the UBC CW MFA optional-residency program for nearly a decade and has presented workshops and retreats across the country. She now offers developmental edits and mentors writers on her online teaching forums. For more, check out her website: gailanderson-dargatz.ca. Or follow her on Twitter @AndersonDargatz