J. Jill Robinson
Encyclopedia
Jacqueline Jill Robinson (born June 16, 1955) is a western Canadian
writer, editor and teacher. She is the author of four collections of short stories. Her fiction
and creative nonfiction
have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals including Geist
, the Antigonish Review, Event, Prairie Fire
and the Windsor Review
. Her novel More In Anger is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2012.
Robinson has won numerous literary competitions including two Western Magazine Awards, two Saskatchewan
Book Awards, two prizes for creative nonfiction from Event magazine, the PRISM international
fiction contest and the Howard O'Hagan award for short fiction from the Writers Guild of Alberta
. Her stories have also won critical acclaim for their vivid characters, spare writing and tragic themes that nevertheless convey hope and humour.
Robinson served as the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon
Public Library during 2004-2005. From 1995 to 1999, she was editor of the literary magazine Grain, published quarterly by the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. She has taught English literature and creative writing at the Universities of Calgary
and Saskatchewan
, at St. Peter's College
in Muenster, Saskatchewan
and at the First Nations University of Canada
.
Robinson is married to the writer Steven Ross Smith and is the mother of a teenaged son. She lives in Banff, Alberta
.
in 1955, but she also had family ties to Alberta. Her mother grew up in Calgary
while her father, a doctor, was from Banff. Robinson's family loved books. "We don't want to get into the dynamics of my family," she once told a journalist, "because they were awful. One of the best things about my family was the mutual love of books. We would all go to different rooms and read them.
In the late 1970s, Robinson was living in Radium Hot Springs, B.C.
when she decided she needed more education. She enrolled at the University of Calgary
in 1979 and by 1985 had earned a Bachelor of Arts
degree in English literature and drama as well as a Master's degree
in Canadian and American literature. Her Master's thesis was entitled, The circumferential vision: love and death in the poetry of Emily Dickinson
.
In 1987, Robinson began writing seriously for the first time while attending the Banff School of Fine Arts
. A year later, she enrolled in the creative writing
program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
. "I was the only Canadian in a graduate program with just 12 students in it...and it was great," she told a reporter in 2004. She added that the program provided her with "a toolbox of techniques for writing and skills" while giving her a chance to read a wide variety of American writers. "That was really when it became clear that there was no doubt in my mind I was going to be a writer."
degree from the University of Alaska in 1990. Her MFA thesis consisted of writings that later became the basis for Saltwater Trees, her first collection of short stories published in 1991 when she was 36. The Writers Guild of Alberta awarded Saltwater Trees its Howard O'Hagan prize for short fiction. Reviewer Mary Walters Riskin noted the book was a fine beginning to Robinson's career. "One of the most refreshing aspects of this collection is that so many of the 13 stories in Saltwater Trees rise out of the insanities, the batterings and the drudgeries of real life to end on notes of hope," Riskin wrote.
In 1993, J. Jill Robinson published Lovely In Her Bones, a collection of 11 stories including "Finding Linette," co-winner of Event magazine's 1992 prize for creative nonfiction. Calgary journalist and author Ken McGoogan
, who interviewed Robinson about the new book, described "Finding Linette" as a "technically sophisticated" story that "intercuts the straight-ahead tale of a family's Christmas gathering with memories—and conflicting versions—of the long-ago death of a child." Robinson warned, however, that although the story was based on "family mythology" and other stories in the book came from her own experience, they should not be read too literally. "People are using a more liberal definition of nonfiction," she said. "There's a lot more freedom of structure and angle. A lot more room for imagination."
Lovely In Her Bones received favourable reviews. Globe and Mail critic John Doyle wrote that the stories were ones of "quiet self absorption" adding: "Fortunately, they are written in a clear, lucid
prose and often attain a rhythm that saves them from static solipsism
." He summed up the collection as "a mosaic of sharply observed events and incidents" calling it the "best type of short story collection" and adding: "At the close of the collection the mosaic has taken shape and stands as a radiant insight into the power of painful memories." The Globe's book editors listed Lovely In Her Bones as "among the books we couldn't put down in 1993."
In the Edmonton Journal, reviewer Valerie Compton pointed to Robinson's passage that begins, "I am always alone. Always thinking..." as evidence of both the strengths and weaknesses of Lovely In Her Bones. She called the stories "so pared down, so reduced to wistful contemplation that it is almost enervating. Almost, but not quite, because these stories depend for their effects on insights we might not achieve without spending a good long time inside a character's head."
In 1995, Robinson gave birth to her son Emmett. During her years in Saskatchewan, she also taught creative writing at St. Peter's College in Muenster as well as at the First Nations University of Canada.
Robinson served for four years, from 1995 to 1999, as editor of the quarterly literary magazine Grain: the journal of eclectic writing dividing her time between her own writing in the mornings and editing in the afternoons.
A review in ForeWord magazine
noted that Residual Desire is an "unsentimental examination" of women's lives. "Robinson's stories are dramatic and heart wrenching, but, impressively, there's nothing heavy-handed or unbelievable in her delivery," the review added. "Her characters probe the most vulnerable underbellies of their lives—lost loves, aging fathers, jealous sisterhoods—and push the reader to do the same."
During an interview about Residual Desire, Robinson agreed that her work could be described as unsentimental and heart wrenching. "One of the things that gets me writing is sadness," she said. "When you're happy and joyful, you don't need so much to pick up a pen to try to fathom or understand life...If a story of mine helps somebody see that there's another way through a really difficult, or seemingly impossible situation, I feel good," she added. "That's one of the reasons I write." She told another journalist she was pleased with Residual Desire. "I'm happy with all of the stories," she said. "Each one of them is the best that I can make it."
Residual Desire includes "Deja Vu" a story commissioned by CBC Radio
on the recommendation of Guy Vanderhaeghe
, winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards. "It's about a woman who's on her way to the Coast stops in Calgary and on a whim, decides to visit her ex-husband," Robinson told a journalist. "It's about how memory works, and yearning for and re-visiting the things that have played an important part in your life."
From September 1, 2004 to May 31, 2005, Robinson served as the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. In 2009, she and her family moved from Saskatoon to Banff, Alberta where she now lives.
who believed that matters of the heart are the only things worth writing about. She has also said that she loves the intensity of short stories adding that Raymond Carver
was one of her main influences. "I like the way Carver writes dialogue, the spareness, so that when he's writing about something painful, it can make you wince at how naked it is," Robinson told an interviewer. "There's no padding." Master short story writer, Alice Munro
was another strong influence. "If I could write anything like Munro," she once said. "I would fall to my knees and praise the sky."
Robinson explains that her stories are based on personal experience, her own or someone she knows. "They begin with the truth," she says, "but as it changes into fiction, truth itself changes in order that it can do what is necessary for the story."
She won an Honourable Mention in the National Magazine Award
s for "The Letter," a piece of personal journalism. Her short story collection Lovely In Her Bones was on the Globe and Mail's top 100 books list for 1993. Residual Desire won a Silver Medal in Michigan
's ForeWord magazine's
Small Presses awards in 2004. And, CBC Radio commissioned the story Deja Vu for broadcast in 1998.
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces and commonly as the West, is a region of Canada that includes the four provinces west of the province of Ontario.- Provinces :...
writer, editor and teacher. She is the author of four collections of short stories. Her fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and creative nonfiction
Creative nonfiction
Creative nonfiction is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service...
have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals including Geist
Geist (magazine)
Geist is Canada's most widely read literary magazine. Geist is published four times a year in Vancouver since 1990. The magazine takes its name from the German word geist, meaning "mind" or "spirit."...
, the Antigonish Review, Event, Prairie Fire
Prairie Fire (magazine)
Prairie Fire is a Canadian literary magazine. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the magazine publishes as a quarterly. Prairie Fire magazine was created in hopes to expand Canadians' knowledge and awareness of literary work rather than focusing on mainstream writings of our generation. Included in the...
and the Windsor Review
Windsor Review
The Windsor Review is a bi-annual peer-reviewed journal publishing new and established contemporary literary fiction, non-fiction interviews and poetry, as well as visual artists from Canada and around the world. It was established in 1965 by Eugene McNamara, and was originally named University of...
. Her novel More In Anger is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2012.
Robinson has won numerous literary competitions including two Western Magazine Awards, two Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
Book Awards, two prizes for creative nonfiction from Event magazine, the PRISM international
PRISM international
PRISM international is a magazine published quarterly in Vancouver, British Columbia. Established in 1959, it is Western Canada's senior literary magazine...
fiction contest and the Howard O'Hagan award for short fiction from the Writers Guild of Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
. Her stories have also won critical acclaim for their vivid characters, spare writing and tragic themes that nevertheless convey hope and humour.
Robinson served as the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....
Public Library during 2004-2005. From 1995 to 1999, she was editor of the literary magazine Grain, published quarterly by the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. She has taught English literature and creative writing at the Universities of Calgary
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...
and Saskatchewan
University of Saskatchewan
The University of Saskatchewan is a Canadian public research university, founded in 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. An "Act to establish and incorporate a University for the Province of Saskatchewan" was passed by the...
, at St. Peter's College
St Peter's College, Muenster
St Peter's College was established by Benedictine monks of St. Peter's Abbey in 1921. The St. Peter's Abbey was founded in 1903 on the same site as the college. From 1921 until 1972 the College also offered a boys high school program. Today the college offers the first two years of the...
in Muenster, Saskatchewan
Muenster, Saskatchewan
- Education :Muenster is home to St. Peter's College, an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan. It was originally founded by the Benedictine monks of St. Peter’s Abbey in 1921. The college offers a full first year of Arts and Sciences classes and senior classes in several disciplines...
and at the First Nations University of Canada
First Nations University of Canada
The First Nations University of Canada is a university in Saskatchewan, Canada with campuses in Regina, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert...
.
Robinson is married to the writer Steven Ross Smith and is the mother of a teenaged son. She lives in Banff, Alberta
Banff, Alberta
Banff is a town within Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. It is located in Alberta's Rockies along the Trans-Canada Highway, approximately west of Calgary and east of Lake Louise....
.
Making of a writer
J. Jill Robinson was born in Langley, British ColumbiaLangley, British Columbia (city)
The City of Langley is a municipality in Metro Vancouver. It lies directly east of the City of Surrey, adjacent to Cloverdale, and surrounded on the north, east and south by Township of Langley.-History:...
in 1955, but she also had family ties to Alberta. Her mother grew up in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
while her father, a doctor, was from Banff. Robinson's family loved books. "We don't want to get into the dynamics of my family," she once told a journalist, "because they were awful. One of the best things about my family was the mutual love of books. We would all go to different rooms and read them.
In the late 1970s, Robinson was living in Radium Hot Springs, B.C.
Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia
Radium Hot Springs is a village of approximately 800 people situated in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia. The village is named for the hot springs located in the nearby Kootenay National Park...
when she decided she needed more education. She enrolled at the University of Calgary
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...
in 1979 and by 1985 had earned a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in English literature and drama as well as a Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Canadian and American literature. Her Master's thesis was entitled, The circumferential vision: love and death in the poetry of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
.
In 1987, Robinson began writing seriously for the first time while attending the Banff School of Fine Arts
Banff Centre
The Banff Centre, formerly known as The Banff Centre for Continuing Education, is an arts, cultural, and educational institution and conference complex located in Banff, Alberta...
. A year later, she enrolled in the creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Alaska Fairbanks
The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....
. "I was the only Canadian in a graduate program with just 12 students in it...and it was great," she told a reporter in 2004. She added that the program provided her with "a toolbox of techniques for writing and skills" while giving her a chance to read a wide variety of American writers. "That was really when it became clear that there was no doubt in my mind I was going to be a writer."
Saltwater Trees
Robinson earned a Master of Fine ArtsMaster of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree from the University of Alaska in 1990. Her MFA thesis consisted of writings that later became the basis for Saltwater Trees, her first collection of short stories published in 1991 when she was 36. The Writers Guild of Alberta awarded Saltwater Trees its Howard O'Hagan prize for short fiction. Reviewer Mary Walters Riskin noted the book was a fine beginning to Robinson's career. "One of the most refreshing aspects of this collection is that so many of the 13 stories in Saltwater Trees rise out of the insanities, the batterings and the drudgeries of real life to end on notes of hope," Riskin wrote.
Lovely In Her Bones
I am always alone. Always thinking. In, and in, and in unto myself. I tell you, the world is the inside of my head. |
| – From Lovely In Her Bones by J. Jill Robinson. |
In 1993, J. Jill Robinson published Lovely In Her Bones, a collection of 11 stories including "Finding Linette," co-winner of Event magazine's 1992 prize for creative nonfiction. Calgary journalist and author Ken McGoogan
Ken McGoogan
Ken McGoogan is the Canadian author of eight books, including four biographies focusing on northern exploration and published internationally: Fatal Passage , Ancient Mariner , Lady Franklin's Revenge , and Race to the Polar Sea .Born in Montreal and raised in a francophone town, McGoogan has...
, who interviewed Robinson about the new book, described "Finding Linette" as a "technically sophisticated" story that "intercuts the straight-ahead tale of a family's Christmas gathering with memories—and conflicting versions—of the long-ago death of a child." Robinson warned, however, that although the story was based on "family mythology" and other stories in the book came from her own experience, they should not be read too literally. "People are using a more liberal definition of nonfiction," she said. "There's a lot more freedom of structure and angle. A lot more room for imagination."
Lovely In Her Bones received favourable reviews. Globe and Mail critic John Doyle wrote that the stories were ones of "quiet self absorption" adding: "Fortunately, they are written in a clear, lucid
prose and often attain a rhythm that saves them from static solipsism
Solipsism
Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from Latin solus and ipse . Solipsism as an epistemological position holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not...
." He summed up the collection as "a mosaic of sharply observed events and incidents" calling it the "best type of short story collection" and adding: "At the close of the collection the mosaic has taken shape and stands as a radiant insight into the power of painful memories." The Globe's book editors listed Lovely In Her Bones as "among the books we couldn't put down in 1993."
In the Edmonton Journal, reviewer Valerie Compton pointed to Robinson's passage that begins, "I am always alone. Always thinking..." as evidence of both the strengths and weaknesses of Lovely In Her Bones. She called the stories "so pared down, so reduced to wistful contemplation that it is almost enervating. Almost, but not quite, because these stories depend for their effects on insights we might not achieve without spending a good long time inside a character's head."
Eggplant Wife
J. Jill Robinson moved from Calgary to Saskatoon in 1993 to join the writer, Steven Ross Smith whom she would later marry. In 1995, she published Eggplant Wife, a novella and short stories. The collection was shortlisted for the 1996 Saskatchewan Book Award. A review in the Edmonton Journal noted Robinson's "flair for domestic drama and detail. The plotting is almost incidental to the emotional states of the characters." The novella tells the story of a young couple who leave Vancouver to move into his parents' prairie farmhouse. Mitch had paid for his parents' trip to Hawaii where they were swept away by a wave. The eggplant of the title refers to a bowl of ceramic fruits and vegetables in the farmhouse kitchen.In 1995, Robinson gave birth to her son Emmett. During her years in Saskatchewan, she also taught creative writing at St. Peter's College in Muenster as well as at the First Nations University of Canada.
Robinson served for four years, from 1995 to 1999, as editor of the quarterly literary magazine Grain: the journal of eclectic writing dividing her time between her own writing in the mornings and editing in the afternoons.
Residual Desire
In 2003, Robinson published Residual Desire, her fourth collection of short stories. The book captured two Saskatchewan Book Awards and earned praise from critics such as Verne Clemence. "The stories in this excellent collection are character-driven," he wrote. "The prose is spare and well crafted. The stories are edgy as befits the dark themes that drive them, but there is hope too, and more than one rueful laugh at those delightful foibles that mark us all as human."A review in ForeWord magazine
ForeWord (magazine)
ForeWord is a trade journal published six times yearly with the tagline, “Reviews of Good Books Independently Published.” The magazine is distributed primarily to librarians and booksellers to familiarize them with upcoming books from small, independent, and university presses, as well as...
noted that Residual Desire is an "unsentimental examination" of women's lives. "Robinson's stories are dramatic and heart wrenching, but, impressively, there's nothing heavy-handed or unbelievable in her delivery," the review added. "Her characters probe the most vulnerable underbellies of their lives—lost loves, aging fathers, jealous sisterhoods—and push the reader to do the same."
I am generally a fan of sparely written prose; a character's suffering can be laid so bare the reader winces because she can't shy away. |
| – From a book review by J. Jill Robinson. |
During an interview about Residual Desire, Robinson agreed that her work could be described as unsentimental and heart wrenching. "One of the things that gets me writing is sadness," she said. "When you're happy and joyful, you don't need so much to pick up a pen to try to fathom or understand life...If a story of mine helps somebody see that there's another way through a really difficult, or seemingly impossible situation, I feel good," she added. "That's one of the reasons I write." She told another journalist she was pleased with Residual Desire. "I'm happy with all of the stories," she said. "Each one of them is the best that I can make it."
Residual Desire includes "Deja Vu" a story commissioned by CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
on the recommendation of Guy Vanderhaeghe
Guy Vanderhaeghe
Guy Clarence Vanderhaeghe, OC, SOM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer, best known for his two Western novels, The Englishman's Boy and The Last Crossing, set in the 19th century American and Canadian West...
, winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards. "It's about a woman who's on her way to the Coast stops in Calgary and on a whim, decides to visit her ex-husband," Robinson told a journalist. "It's about how memory works, and yearning for and re-visiting the things that have played an important part in your life."
From September 1, 2004 to May 31, 2005, Robinson served as the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. In 2009, she and her family moved from Saskatoon to Banff, Alberta where she now lives.
Forthcoming novel
J. Jill Robinson is also the author of More In Anger, a novel that is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2012. The novel appears to have taken her a long time to write. In 2003, she told a journalist she was "struggling" with a novel adding that she preferred writing short stories. "I like the smaller, more intense, more narrow focus," Robinson said. `"I like to know where the edges are. You can move the boundaries by making the story longer or shorter, but you know where they are. Which isn't the case with the novel. Or at least it hasn't been in my experience."Influences
Robinson once explained that her artistic inspiration came from the American writer William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
who believed that matters of the heart are the only things worth writing about. She has also said that she loves the intensity of short stories adding that Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....
was one of her main influences. "I like the way Carver writes dialogue, the spareness, so that when he's writing about something painful, it can make you wince at how naked it is," Robinson told an interviewer. "There's no padding." Master short story writer, Alice Munro
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short-story writer, the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction, and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize...
was another strong influence. "If I could write anything like Munro," she once said. "I would fall to my knees and praise the sky."
Robinson explains that her stories are based on personal experience, her own or someone she knows. "They begin with the truth," she says, "but as it changes into fiction, truth itself changes in order that it can do what is necessary for the story."
Awards and honours
J. Jill Robinson's work has won a variety of awards including the PRISM international fiction contest; Event magazine's creative nonfiction contest (twice); two Gold Western Magazine awards; two Saskatchewan Book awards and the Howard O'Hagan Prize for short fiction.She won an Honourable Mention in the National Magazine Award
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
s for "The Letter," a piece of personal journalism. Her short story collection Lovely In Her Bones was on the Globe and Mail's top 100 books list for 1993. Residual Desire won a Silver Medal in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's ForeWord magazine's
ForeWord (magazine)
ForeWord is a trade journal published six times yearly with the tagline, “Reviews of Good Books Independently Published.” The magazine is distributed primarily to librarians and booksellers to familiarize them with upcoming books from small, independent, and university presses, as well as...
Small Presses awards in 2004. And, CBC Radio commissioned the story Deja Vu for broadcast in 1998.