Don Gillmor

Don Gillmor
EducationUniversity of Calgary (B.A., 1977)
Occupations
Writing career
Notable works
  • Kanata
  • Mount Pleasant
  • To the River
Notable awards

Don Gillmor is a Canadian journalist, novelist, historian, and writer of children's books;[1] he is the recipient of many awards for his journalism and fiction.

Career

Gillmor's writing has appeared in Saturday Night,[2] The Globe and Mail,[3][4] the Toronto Star,[5][6] Rolling Stone, GQ, National Geographic, and Toronto Life.[7] He worked as senior editor at The Walrus.[8] He also served on the faculty of the Literary Journalism Program at the Banff Centre.[9]

Gillmor's magazine writing has earned him twelve National Magazine Awards,[10] and he has been called "one of Canada’s most celebrated profile writers".[11] In 2014, he won a National Newspaper Award for an article on baby boomers and suicide.[12][13]

Gillmor is the author of five works of fiction: Kanata (2009), a Canadian historical epic;[14] Mount Pleasant (2013), a comic novel about debt;[15] Long Change (2015), which explores the life of an oilman (Gillmor worked on an oil rig in the late 1970s);[16] Breaking and Entering (2023), a novel about a middle-aged woman who learns lock picking;[17] and Cherry Beach (2026), a crime novel set in Toronto.[18] He has also written books of non-fiction, including the two-volume work Canada: A People's History co-authored with Pierre Turgeon, which accompanied the award-winning television program of the same name[19] and won the 2001 Libris Award for non-fiction book of the year.[20] Among his children's books are Yuck, A Love Story (2000), which won the 2000 Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature, and The Fabulous Song (1996), which won a Mr. Christie's Book Award.[21]

In 2019 he won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction for his book To the River: Losing My Brother.[22]

Personal life

Gillmor graduated from the University of Calgary with a B.A. in 1977.[16][23]

He currently resides in Toronto.[24]

Bibliography

Non-fiction

  • Canada: A People’s History, Volume I (2000)
  • Canada: A People’s History, Volume II (2001)
  • The Desire of Every Living Thing (2000)
  • Insight and On Site: The Work of Diamond + Schmitt (2008)
  • Stratford Behind the Scenes (2012)
  • To the River (2018)

Fiction

  • Kanata (2009)
  • Mount Pleasant (2013)
  • Long Change (2015)
  • Breaking and Entering (2023)
  • Cherry Beach (2026)

Children's books

  • The Trouble with Justin (1993)
  • When Vegetables Go Bad (1994)
  • The Fabulous Song (1995)
  • The Christmas Orange (1998)
  • Yuck, A Love Story (2000)
  • Sophie and the Sea Monster (2005)
  • The Boy Who Ate the World (2008)
  • The Time Time Stopped (2011)

References

  1. ↑ Barber, John (4 April 2013), "We will be forever in Don Gillmor’s debt", The Globe and Mail, retrieved 19 January 2016
  2. ↑ "Saturday Night fonds". McMaster University Library. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  3. ↑ Gillmor, Don (2009-12-01). "Review: The Writings of David Thompson: Volume 1". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  4. ↑ Gillmor, Don (2026-04-10). "Opinion: The war in Iran reminds us that we have always been hostages to oil". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  5. ↑ Gillmor, Don (2012-11-23). "The great lie of the populist politician". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  6. ↑ Gillmor, Don (2015-06-07). "Concussion business is booming, but players are still taking a hit". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  7. ↑ "Don Gillmor". Writers' Trust of Canada. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  8. ↑ Brown, Ian, ed. (2014). What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men. Dundurn. ISBN 978-1-4597-2615-4.
  9. ↑ Trethewey, Laura (November 14, 2012). "Don Gillmor's 'sense of the mountains'". The Banff Centre Blog. Archived from the original on 2012-11-28.
  10. ↑ "Announcing the Winners of the 40th Anniversary National Magazine Awards". National Magazine Awards. 2017-05-27. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  11. ↑ Hampson, Sarah (2013-03-29). "In Don Gillmor's second novel, debt is the new death". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  12. ↑ "Star captures 13 National Newspaper Award nominations". The Toronto Star. 2014-03-17. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  13. ↑ Wiersema, Robert J. (2023-08-15). "When the sandwich generation gets squeezed, who knows what they'll do next? A Toronto summer of discontent never looked so funny". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  14. ↑ Armstrong, Bob (2009-11-07). "Nov 2009: Gillmor maps out blind luck, inevitability of history". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  15. ↑ Good, Alex (March 28, 2013). "Book Review: Mount Pleasant, by Don Gillmor". The National Post.
  16. 1 2 Volmers, Eric (October 12, 2015). "WordFest: Don Gillmor explores life of an oilman with Long Change". Calgary Herald.
  17. ↑ Counter, Rosemary (August 24, 2023). "'Breaking and Entering' Introduces a Lock-Picking Empty Nester Having a Midlife Crisis". Zoomer. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  18. ↑ Apa, Christina (2026-06-23). "Slain and Abel | A review of 'Cherry Beach' by Don Gillmor". Literary Review of Canada. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  19. ↑ Smith, Stephen (2004-02-16). "Canada: A People's History (Volume One)". Quill and Quire. Retrieved 2026-08-12.
  20. ↑ "Winner History – Libris Awards" (PDF). Retail Council of Canada. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.
  21. ↑ "The Fabulous Song". The Secret Mountain. Retrieved 2026-08-13.
  22. ↑ Van Koeverden, Jane (October 29, 2019). "Here are the winners of the 2019 Governor General's Literary Awards". CBC Books.
  23. ↑ "Arch Awards Past Recipients | Events". Alumni | University of Calgary. Retrieved 2026-08-13.
  24. ↑ Wiersema, Robert (2018-12-28). "Toronto author Don Gillmor explores topic of suicide in emotional new book". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved 2026-08-13.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.