Joanna Lilley

Appeared Saturday February 28th 2015

Author of The Fleece Era (Brick Books 2014) and a forthcoming short story collection The Birthday Books (Hagios Press May 2015)

Joanna’s work is widely published in Canada and the UK, including poems in two New Writing Scotland anthologies. Her work has won many prizes including first prize in the Vancouver International Writers Festival Competition and second prize in the WH Drummond Poetry Competition. In 2005, she won the Lothian Life poetry competition here in Scotland. Her short stories have been included The Scotsman and Orange Short Story Award Secrets collection and Openink’s A Fictional Guide to Scotland.

 

“The Fleece Era contains some beautiful poetry, but has a narrative ease to it that will appeal to readers who don’t usually read poetry. The writing is taut yet deep, brimming with energy and openness.” Literary Press Group of Canada.

“I’m reminded of Emily Dickinson’s semi-mystical, epigrammatic lyrics, but also Elizabeth Bishop’s pointillist portraiture — the exquisite image and restrained emotion.” George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald

“In a voice that is at times happily off-kilter and nearly musical, the poems in Joanna Lilley’s The Fleece Era seek to solve the riddles of her present life in the Yukon and her past familial relationships...” Al Rempel, Arc Poetry Magazine