Eden Robinson

Photo from Thin Air Winnipeg International Writers Festival

Eden Robinson is a Haisla from Kitamaat, northern B.C. In 1998, her first short story collection, Traplines, won Britain's Winnifred Holtby prize. It was also a New York Times Editor's Choice and Notable Book of the Year. The book was picked up by publishers in Estonia, and half a dozen other countries.

In 2000, her first novel, Monkey Beach, appeared under the Random House's New Faces of Fiction. The book was Editor's Choice for the Globe and Mail and was also nominated for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.

This novel takes place in Kitimat, a small town where I lived and worked. Though I graduated from high school in nearby Terrace a year before Robinson was born, I found it chilling at times to see what the local school looked like through her aboriginal eyes.

According to Nicholas Dinka, Robinson writes "disturbing fiction" about "characters who make Tony Soprano seem well-adjusted" (Quill & Quire Author Profile December 2005). Stephen King, says Robinson, was a formative influence.

Speaking of Blood Sports (2005), she told Dinka she found the structure "unnerving." She also mentioned that though she did have outlines for the book, her characters refused to comply with her plans for them. The book was reviewed by Nathan Whitlock.

Robinson studied creative writing at UVic, where she failed the introductory fiction technique seminar -- an ordeal which she feels helped her later when she had to struggle through the harder parts of getting her pieces of writing finished.

Later, with a solid grounding from UVic, she entered the graduate Creative Writing program at UBC and finished a draft of Monkey Beach there while earning her Master's Degree.