Steven Heighton’s most recent books are The Nightingale Won’t Let You Sleep, a novel published by Hamish Hamilton in March 2017, and The Waking Comes Late, which received the 2016 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. He is also the author of the novelAfterlands, which appeared in six countries, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and was a “best of year” selection in ten publications in Canada, the USA, and the UK. The novel has been optioned for film by Pall Grimsson and is in pre-production. He has also published The Shadow Boxer—a Canadian bestseller and a Publishers’ Weekly Book of the Year for 2002—which appeared in five countries. His other fiction books are the story collections Flight Paths of the Emperor and On earth as it is, while his poetry collections include The Ecstasy of Skeptics and The Address Book.
His fiction and poetry have been translated into ten languages, have appeared in London Review of Books, Zoetrope: All-Story, Tin House, Poetry, Brick, The Independent, TLR, London Magazine, New England Review, Malahat Review, Agni, The Walrus, Poetry London and Revue Europe, have been internationally anthologised (Best English Stories, Best of Best English Stories, Best American Poetry, The Minerva Book of Stories, Best American Mystery Stories and others) and have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Journey Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award. Heighton has received the Governor General’s Award for poetry, the Gerald Lampert Award, the 2010 K.M. Hunter Award (literature), the 2011 P.K. Page Founders’ Award, The Petra Kenney Prize, the Air Canada Award, and four gold National Magazine Awards. He has been the writer-in-residence at McGill University; Concordia University; Massey College, U of T; Queen’s University; the University of Ottawa; and CMR/RMC. He has taught at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia; at the Sage Hill Writing Experience; and in the writing program at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Heighton is also a fiction reviewer for the New York Times Book Review.
Catch Steven Heighton at the Hillside Park Poetry Stage.