Joan Clark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joan Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 October 1934 Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | 11 April 2023 (aged 88) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Genre | Children's literature |
Joan Clark (née MacDonald; 12 October 1934 – 11 April 2023)[1] was a Canadian fiction author.
Born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Clark spent her youth in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. She attended Acadia University for its drama program, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree with an English major in 1957.[2] She has worked as a teacher.
Clark moved to Alberta in the early 1960s with her engineer husband[3] and attended the University of Alberta before moving to Calgary in 1965. There she started to write stories.[4] She lived in Alberta for two decades.[5] In 1975, she and Edna Alford started the literary journal Dandelion in that province. In 1976, she studied with W. O. Mitchell at the Banff Centre.[6] Clark also served as president of the Writers' Guild of Alberta. She eventually returned to Atlantic Canada in 1985,[5] settling in St. John's, Newfoundland. There she was a founding member of the Writers Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador.[3]
Clark served on the jury of the 2001 Giller Prize. In 2010 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2018, An Audience of Chairs, a film adaptation of her novel was released.
- 1988: fiction finalist, Governor General's Awards
- 1988: finalist, Books in Canada First Novel Award, The Victory of Geraldine Gull
- 1991: Marian Engel Award
- 1995: Geoffrey Bilson Award, The Dream Carvers
- 1998: Honorary Doctor of Letters, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College
- 1999: Vicky Metcalf Award
- 2003: Geoffrey Bilson Award, The Word for Home
- 2006: longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, An Audience of Chairs
- 2010: Order of Canada
