Linda Spalding | |
---|---|
Born | Linda Dickinson 25 June 1943 Topeka, Kansas, United States |
Occupation | Novelist |
Nationality | Canadian |
Notable works | A Dark Place in the Jungle |
Spouse | Philip Spalding Michael Ondaatje |
Children | 2 (including Esta Spalding) |
Website | |
www |
Linda Spalding (née Dickinson; June 25, 1943) is a Canadian writer and editor. Born in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Jacob Alan Dickinson and Edith Senner, she lived in Mexico and Hawaii before moving to Toronto, Ontario in 1982.[1]
She has two daughters, Esta and Kristin Spalding, from her first marriage to photographer Philip Spalding. Spalding later married Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje; Linda, Esta and Michael are also on the editorial board of the national literary magazine, Brick.[2]
Spalding's work has been honoured numerous times; her non-fiction work, The Follow, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award and the Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize. She has since received the Harbourfront Festival Prize for her contribution to the Canadian literary community[3] and, in 2012, the Governor-General's Literary Award for her novel, The Purchase.[4]
Spalding has worked as a professor of English and writing at the University of Hawaii, York University, the University of Guelph, Brown University (where she was writer-in-residence in 1991), the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. She has also taught creative writing at Humber College's School for Writers.[1] Prior to this, she has worked as a manager for Hawaii Public Television and as the director of a child care services agency in Kailua, Hawaii.