Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia

Susan Goyette

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Sue Goyette

Brief Biography

Sue Goyette lives in Halifax and has published three books of poems, The True Names of Birds, Undone and outskirts (Brick Books). Her novel, Lures (HarperCollins), was published in 2002. She's been nominated for several awards including the Governor General's Award for Poetry, the Pat Lowther, the Gerald Lampert, the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Dartmouth Book Award and the Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry. Selections of her work won the 2008 CBC Literary Prize for Poetry, the 2010 Earle Birney Award and the 2011 Bliss Carman Poetry Award. Her fourth collection of poems, Ocean, is forthcoming from Gapereau Press in 2013. Her poetry has appeared on the Toronto subway system, in wedding vows and spray-painted on a sidewalk somewhere in St. John, New Brunswick. Sue has taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Blue Heron Workshop, the Sage Hill Experience and currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Dalhousie University. She also participates in the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia's Writers in the Schools programs.

Selected List of Publications

o outskirts. Brick Books, 2011.

o “One of the best poets writing today in Canada, Susan Goyette proves herself at the height of her powers in outskirts…With its zesty wordplay and its wrenching of the “eco” from the “logical,” outskirts is both a book and a reckoning. Goyette is candid, clairvoyant, and rescuing in her vision.”-Molly Peacock.

o Undone. Brick Books, 2004. ISBN 1-894078-33-0.

· Nominated for the Atlantic Poetry Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award and the Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry.

· "Goyette combines the seeming ordinariness of our human days with tenderness and artful wisdom." -Patrick Lane. The Globe & Mail, July 3, 2004

· Click here for more information.

· Lures. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0-00-200506-9.

· Nominated for the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Dartmouth Book Award.

· "I read Lures in one tense sitting, unable to wait overnight to learn how the children of this novel endure the heart-rending injustices Sue Goyette builds into the adult world they inhabit. Her writing is that of a seasoned novelist - authentic, edgy, and precise. Her characters are complex, sometimes startling in their originality, and unforgettable." - Pearl Luke, award-winning author of Burning Ground

· "Lures is a vivid and intimate study of the poignancy of youth and the painful but ever-hopeful ambivalence of familial love." - Lynn Coady, author of Play the Monster BlindM and Strange Heaven

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· The True Names of Birds. London, Brick Books, 1998.

· Nominated for the 1999 Governor General's Award for Poetry, the Pat Lowther Award and the Gerald Lampert Award. Globe & Mail Best Book List, 1999.

· "This is a poet to watch, and one who watches... This is what poets are supposed to do. To see. To see when everybody else is half-blind." - "Poets to read and poets to watch." Fraser Sutherland. The Globe & Mail, 31 July 1999.

· Click here for more information.

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