Naomi K. Lewis

Lewis was born in London, and grew up near Washington, D.C. and in Ottawa. Her sister and brother-in-law are the artists Chloe Lewis and Andrew Taggart,^[2] and her great-uncle was the poet and artist Izrael Lejzerowicz [pl]. Lewis lived in Toronto, Fredericton and Edmonton, and completed degrees in philosophy and English literature, before settling in Calgary. She served as writer-in-residence both at the Calgary Public Library in 2011, and at the University of New Brunswick in 2015.^[3] Lewis was an associate editor of Alberta Views magazine from 2012 to 2015.^[4]

Lewis's first novel, Cricket in a Fist, was published by Goose Lane Editions in 2008. Lewis's story, "The Guiding Light" won the 2007 Fiddlehead fiction contest and appeared in McClelland and Stewart's 2008 Journey Prize Anthology.^[5][6] Lewis' collection of short stories I Know Who You Remind Me Of won the 2012 Colophon Prize, from Great Plains Publishing.^[7] Lewis's 2011 Alberta Views article "The Urge to Purge",^[8] about detox diets, was shortlisted for a 2011 Canadian National Magazine Award, as was her 2014 article "A Bridge Too Far: The Story of My Big Jewish Nose."^[9] With Calgary writer Rona Altrows, she edited an anthology of essays and poetry about shyness entitled Shy, published by the University of Alberta Press in 2013.^[10]

Lewis also co-wrote In Case of Fire, a 2010 memoir about Edmonton burn survivor and workplace safety advocate Spencer Beach.

More recently, Lewis's 2019 memoir Tiny Lights for Travellers won Alberta's Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction,^[11] the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature (nonfiction),^[12] and the Pinsky Givon Family Prize for Nonfiction, a Western Canada Jewish Book Award.^[13] It was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Award.^[14]