Helen Humphreys

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Helen Humphreys
Helen Humphreys - Eden Mills Writers Festival - 2016 - (DanH-7824) (cropped).jpg
Humphreys at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 2016
Born (1961-03-29) March 29, 1961 (age 63)

Helen Humphreys (born March 29, 1961) [1] is a Canadian poet and novelist.

Contents

Personal life

Humphreys was born in Kingston-on-Thames, England. Her brother Martin and sister Cathy were born after the family moved to Canada. She now lives in Kingston, Ontario with her dog, Fig. When she was younger she was expelled from high school and had to attend an alternative school to finish her education. [2]

Writing career

Humphreys's first novel, Leaving Earth, was a New York Times Notable Book in 1998, and a winner of the City of Toronto Book Award. [3]

In describing how she became a writer, Humphreys said, "I started writing when I was young and I just kept going. I read voraciously. I sent my poems (for I was writing exclusively poems then) out to magazines, and eventually I began to get them published. My first book of poetry came out when I was 25." [4]

In a very favourable review of The Reinvention of Love in The Globe and Mail, Donna Bailey Nurse wrote: "The story is set amid the political turbulence and artistic fervour of 19th-century Paris. Charles Sainte-Beuve, an influential critic, earns the friendship of Victor Hugo after writing a review celebrating the writer's poems. He joins Hugo's literary circle, the Cenacle, which includes painter Delacroix, poet Lamartine and the boastful, profligate Alexandre Dumas. Charles becomes a fixture in the bustling Hugo household on Notre-Dame-des-Champs."[ citation needed ]

The Globe and Mail had this to say about Ms. Humphreys's recent novel: "The Evening Chorus, when all is said and done, is a formally conventional but for the most part satisfying yarn; a quiet novel about a calamitous event whose most trenchant passages show the cast of Humphreys's poet's eye."[ citation needed ]

Quill & Quire says of The River (2017): "Comparing The River to Helen Humphreys's critically acclaimed bestseller The Frozen Thames, her 2007 collection of vignettes about the eponymous river, it's obvious that the author is not content to repeat past successes. The new book, a wide-ranging exploration of the Napanee River in Ontario, along which she owns a small property, clearly shows that Humphreys possesses extraordinary tools and wields them with daring and precision."[ citation needed ]

In 2023, she was the recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's Matt Cohen Award for her career in writing. [5]

Works

Poetry

Novels

Nonfiction

Awards

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References

  1. "Helen Humphreys". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors (Collection). Gale. 2010. ISBN   9780787639952 . Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  2. "Helen Humphreys". Canadian Books & Authors. 13 March 2006. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  3. 1 2 Linda Richards (October 2002). "Interview with Helen Humphrey". January Magazine.
  4. Barclay, Adèle (26 January 2009). "The writer is in". The Queen's University Journal. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  5. Nicole Thompson, "Kai Thomas wins Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for debut novel". Toronto Star , November 21, 2023.
  6. Whittall, Zoe (5 April 2013). "Nocturne by Helen Humphreys". National Post . Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  7. "Review of And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection, the Writing Life by Helen Humphreys". Kirkus Reviews. January 2022.
  8. Helen Humphreys wins $10,000 literary prize. CBC News, 23 September 2009.
  9. "Helen Huphreys New Poet Laureate of Kingston Ontario". Brick Books. 9 March 2015.
  10. "International Literary Award; Atwood, Hill among 14 Canadians listed for prize". Chronicle-Herald. 22 November 2016. ProQuest   1842554677.