Carol Ann Shields (1935–2003,) née Warner, was an American-born Canadian author and academic. She was renowned for her masterful depictions of ordinary life in her ten novels, three collections of short stories and poems, and several plays, a biography, and critical studies.
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Shields graduated from Hanover College in Indiana in 1957. After marriage, she moved to Canada, took a creative writing course at the University of Toronto, and won a competition for young writers.
In 1975, Shields received an M.A. in English literature from the University of Ottawa and taught English at the University of Manitoba 1975–96. She later served as the chancellor of the University of Winnipeg 1996–2000. She combined her professorship with her work as a writer, producing novels of love and family life.
Shields’s notable works include The Republic of Love (1992) and The Stone Diaries (1993; Pulitzer; a fictional autobiography of an ordinary woman spanning from conception until death,) Larry’s Party (1997; Orange Prize, 1998,) Dressing Up for the Carnival (2000,) and Unless (2002.) She also published numerous poems and short stories (Collected Stories, 2004,) and a biography of Jane Austen (2000; Charles Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction, 2002.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Carol Shields
A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction.
—Carol Shields
Topics: Memory
There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.
—Carol Shields
Topics: Life and Living, Self-Discovery
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