Kelley Aitken is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, visual artist, and art instructor.

Aitken was born in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, and graduated from the University of Guelph

University of Guelph

The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...

 with a degree in Fine Arts. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Love in a Warm Climatehttp://www.sentex.net/~pql/climate.html (1998), was short-listed for the 1999 Commonwealth Writers' Prize

Commonwealth Writers' Prize

Commonwealth Writers is an initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation to unearth, develop and promote the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth. It's flagship are two literary awards and a website...

 Best First Book Prizehttp://www.commonwealthwriters.com/. Aitken co-edited, and contributed to, First Writeshttp://www.banffcentre.ca/press/publications/first_writes_2005.htm an anthology published in 2005.

Aitken lives in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 with her partner, former Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong

Frank de Jong

Frank de Jong, is a Canadian politician, environmentalist and elementary school teacher at Fern Avenue Public School...

.