Merilyn Simonds

Merilyn Simonds is the author of 18 books, including the novel The Holding, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and the Canadian classic nonfiction novel, The Convict Lover, a finalist for the Governor General's Award. In 2017, Bookmark Canada unveiled a plaque to honour the place of The Convict Lover in Canada’s literary landscape.

Simonds’ books are translated and sold in Germany, Asia, the UK, Canada, and the United States. In 2012 she published The Paradise Project, a collection of flash fiction hand-printed on an antique press with endpapers made from plants in her garden. The experience of producing the collection in both a digital and book-arts edition is the subject of Gutenberg’s Fingerprint: Paper, Pixels, and the Lasting Impression of Books. Her most recent publication is a novel Refuge, set in Mexico City, New York, and eastern Ontario.

Simonds writes a blog called Books Unpacked, available at her website merilynsimonds.com She shares her life with writer Wayne Grady. They divide their time between Mexico and Canada.