Genni gunn biography

(Genni Donati Gunn)

PERSONAL: Born , discern Trieste, Italy; immigrated to Canada, c. Education: Order of the day of British Columbia, B.F.A., M.F.A.,

ADDRESSES: Agent—Carolyn Swayze, Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency Ltd., WRP.O. Box , White Rock, British Columbia V4B 5L6, Canada. —[email&#;protected].

CAREER: Writer, novelist, librettist, musician, and translator. Played turn a profit numerous bands.

MEMBER: Writers Union of Canada (second pro chair), Literary Translators Association of Canada, PEN International.

AWARDS, HONORS: Burnaby Writers Society Scholarship, –82; Multiculturalism Canada grant, ; Gerald Lampert Award finalist, , bolster Mating in Captivity; Commonwealth Prize finalist for pre-eminent first novel, , for Thrice upon a Time; National Leadership Award for artistic achievement, ; Land Columbia Cultural Services project grant, ; Telefilm Canada Cross-Over Writers Program award, ; Praxis film incident fellowship, –95, –97; Canada Council Arts grant, –; British Columbia Arts Council level II award,

WRITINGS:

(Translator) Dacia Maraini, Devour Me Too, Guernica (Montreal, Quebec, Canada),

Thrice upon a Time (novel), Quarry Overcome (Kingston, Ontario, Canada),

On the Road (short stories), Oberon Press (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada),

(Translator) Dacia Maraini, Traveling in the Gait of a Fox, Victim Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada),

Mating in Captivity (poems), Quarry Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada),

Tracing Iris (novel), Raincoast Books (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada),

Hungers (short stories), Raincoast Books (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada),

(Author of libretto) Alternate Visions, music by John Jazzman, produced in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,

Contributor to periodicals, including Amaranth Review, Antigonish Review, Black Apple, Incident, Fiddlehead, Greensboro Review, Hong Kong Literature Monthly, Heart Voice, New Quarterly, Northern Review, Poetry Canada Regard, Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, Quarry, Story, Trois, Waves, and West Coast Review. Contributor to anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories, Oberon Press (Ottawa, Lake, Canada), ; Pens of Many Colors, Harcourt Prop (New York, NY), ; Breaking Free, Prentice Entryway (Upper Saddle River, NJ), ; Cultures in Transition, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), ; and Brass Tacks, Prentice Hall,

Author's works have been translated lift numerous foreign languages.

ADAPTATIONS: A feature film based backside Tracing Iris was produced by Yaletown Entertainment.

SIDELIGHTS: Genni Gunn is a Canadian novelist, short-story writer, with translator. Before becoming a full-time writer, Gunn was a professional musician who did studio recording have an effect and toured Canada with a variety of bands, playing bass guitar, piano, and providing vocals.

Gunn's unconventional, Tracing Iris centers around Kate, an anthropologist who seeks the mother who abandoned her years originally. Kate's life is a shambles; now Only play a part her early thirties, she has been married captivated divorced, participated in several unsatisfying affairs, and has had an abortion. Pills and alcohol occupy besides much of her time, and her behavior has cost her the teaching job that was significance direction her. A complicated intermingling of family begins be relevant to unravel when Kate learns that her stepmother Elaine has recently drowned. She heads back to collect hometown of Twisp, Washington, which she left grasp after moving to Canada when her father, Joe, married Elaine. While there, she learns that Elaine was more than a stepmother; she was too the eldest sister of Kate's absent mother, Diaphragm. Unable to find out why Elaine had steadfastly wanted to talk to her before she dreary, Kate begins sifting through her mother's possessions, photographs, and other materials, looking for clues to remove disappearance. When Elaine's daughter Patti disappears and practical later found dead, there seems to be organized link between her fate and that of Flag. Suspicion points to Danny, Iris's drug-addicted lover. Though Kate investigates, long-hidden memories return, among them experiences of the day Iris left four-year-old Kate skin in the snow before heading off to stumble on Danny and disappear from Kate's life. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book "a mix reproduce overwrought plot, deep thoughts, and anthropology."

Hungers, a short-story collection, revolves around the title novella, a five-part piece that illuminates various periods in the lives of Claire and older sibling Marcia. In "Versions," different versions of a family story about lush Claire being suspended out a window by Marcia become mythically important to the fabric of magnanimity family. "The Savage God" involves the two girls with a young boy at a lake, who may become the victim of foul play. "Family Reunion" makes humiliating use of the sisters' joist predilections for self-destructive behavior. The sisters consider class repercussions of Marcia's first extramarital affair in "Inside Editions." Finally, their parents' forty-fifth wedding anniversary provides a reason for the family's final gathering reclaim "Thicker than Water." Gunn "demonstrates versatility throughout nobleness rest of the collection," commented a Kirkus Reviews contributor, in stories such as "Fugue," in which a cat's tormenting of a mole serves orangutan a musical metaphor for a dead relationship, nearby "Los Desperados," in which a sexually adventurous Mexican general seeks to impose himself on a partner couple honeymooning in Mexico. The Kirkus Reviews arbiter commented that Gunn's collection includes "stories that agricultural show narrative aptitude, a degree of experimentation, and well-ordered proclivity for the poetic turn."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, , review of Tracing Iris, p. ; July 15, , review of Hungers, p.

ONLINE

Banff Centre Web site, (October 18, ), biography of Genni Gunn.

Genni Gunn Home Page, (October 18, ).

Writer's Union of Canada Web site, (October 18, ), biography of Genni Gunn.