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Writer-in-Residence "Sheree Fitch"

The Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library was pleased to announce our 10th Writer in Residence at the Library, Sheree Fitch!

Ms. Fitch was our Writer-in-Residence @ the library from late October 2013 until April 2014. View her Blog.

The Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library and our patrons, gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Writer in Residence @ the Library program through funding by the Canada Council for the Arts, Author Residencies program and the Pictou-Antigonish Regional Library Board.

Biography

Sheree Fitch is a storyteller, educator, keynote speaker, literacy advocate and the author of award winning poetry, picture books, nonfiction, plays and novels for all ages.

Her first publication was the children's book Toes in my Nose. (Doubleday 1987.) Her second children's book Sleeping Dragons All Around (1989), won the Atlantic Bookseller's Choice Award in 1990. Some of her subsequent awards include the Mr. Christie Book Award for There Were Monkeys in my Kitchen, The Young Canada Reads Award for The Gravesavers and the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1998 for a body of work inspirational to Canadian children.

Her adult poetry debuted in 1992 with the publication of In This House Are Many Women, and was re-issued in 2005. Her adult novel Kiss the Joy As It Flies (2008) was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Award and Pluto's Ghost (2010) won the Canadian Booksellers' Libris Award for young adult book of the year.

Fitch's teaching experience is extensive. She has taught writing workshops around the globe and in universities, including International Schools in Shanghai, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. She has taught poetry and writing at the Faculty of Education at the University of New-Brunswick and children's literature at St. Thomas University, and lectured at many other universities and community colleges throughout Canada. She has also worked as a print journalist from time to time, appeared on television as a character in the children's show The Blue Rainbow, and was a writer/broadcaster at CBC radio for one year. For several years she was a regular panelist on CBC Morningside.

A popular author for author readings and literary festivals, she has been a featured and frequent writer at International Writing Festivals in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg as well as smaller literary and reading festivals. Some of her highlights as an invited author include reading at the Library of Congress, The Canadian Embassy on Canada Day and performing her stories at Washington National Cathedral in the Canada Tent during their May Fair Festival. In fall 2013, she co-presented her work in literacy education in the Arctic at the Smithsonian at the International Conference in Inuit Studies.

Her work in social justice includes being a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Sheree was commissioned to write a book based on the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, If You Could Wear My Sneakers – which became an award-winning book that has been translated, anthologized and adapted as a play. Her work as writer and literacy educator has taken her to the Arctic, Bhutan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Belize, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Mexico.

Fitch is currently the Honorary Spokesperson for the New-Brunswick Coalition for Literacy, and each year presents the Sheree Fitch Adult Learner Awards sponsored by that organization. In addition, each year she sponsors a writing competition for New Brunswick Youth for the New Brunswick Writers Federation. Sheree is also the Honorary Spokesperson for Nova Scotia's Read to Me Program and her board book Kisses Kisses Baby-o was given to all newborns in the province the of Nova Scotia for three years and was translated into French and Mi' kmaq.

Sheree is also a co-editor of an anthology readying for publication in 2014. Her other ventures in literacy education include completing a three-year summer writer in residency for the program Somebody's Daughter in Nunavut. Her most recent creative writing workshops were held again in the country of Bhutan where she taught writing to foster the creation of early childhood literature indigenous to that country.

Her website is www.shereefitch.com. Sheree is also a member of the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia .

Literary Awards and Grants (selected)

• N.B. Writer's Federation President's Award, 1st prize for an unpublished collection of adult poetry 1988
• Canada Council Arts Grant "B" (1988)
• Atlantic Bookseller's Choice Award for Sleeping Dragons All Around, 1990
• Mr. Christie's Children's Book Award for There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen, 1993
• Canadian Authors Association Mariana Dempster Award for contribution to Children's Literature, 1995
• Anne Connor Brimer Award for Mabel Murple, 1996
• Nova Scotia Arts Council Grant, 1997
• Silver Birch Award (Ontario's children's choice) for If You Could Wear My Sneakers, 2000
• Hackamatack Award (Atlantic children's choice) for If You could Wear My Sneakers, 2000
• Queen's Medal
• Vicky Metcalf Award for Inspirational Body of Work in children's literature, 2000
• Winner of the Saskatchewan Snow Willow Award for The Gravesavers,2006
• Winner, CBC Young Canada Reads for The Gravesavers, 2006
• Recipient of the Eileen Wallace Fellowship for research on Atlantic Canadian Poetry for Children.

Bibliography

Books

Adult

• Kiss the Joy As It Flies, Vagrant Press/Nimbus, 2008
• In this House Are Many Women, Goose Lane, 1993 (2nd ed. 2004)

Young Adult

• The Gravesavers, Doubleday Canada, 2005
• One More Step, Orca Soundings, 2002
• Pluto's Ghost, Doubleday Canada, 2010

Children's (selected)

• Night Sky Wheel Ride, illustrated by Yayo. Tradewind. 2012. French edition, La Grand Rue
• Kisses Kisses, Baby-O, illustrated by Hilda Rose. Nimbus, 2008 Translated in to Mi'kmaq and French.
• Peek-a-Little Boo, illustrated by Laura Watson. Orca Books, 2005
• Pocket Rocks, illustrated by Helen Flook. Orca Publishers, 2004
• If I Had a Million Onions, illustrated by Yayo. Tradewind Publisher
• Persnickety Pete (The Cleanest Boy in the World), illustrated by Jane Wallace-Mitchell. Pearson Education Australia, 2003
• No Two Snowflakes, illustrated by Janet Wilson. Orca, 2001
• If I Were The Moon, illustrated by Leslie Watts. Doubleday, 1999
• The Other Author, Arthur, illustrated by Jill Quinn. Pottersfield Press, 1999
• The Hullabaloo Bugaboo Day, illustrated by Jill Quinn. Pottersfield Press, 1998
• There's a Mouse in My House, illustrated by Leslie Watts. Doubleday, 1998
• If You Could Wear My Sneakers!, illustrated by Darcia Labrosse. Doubleday Canada Ltd, 1997
• Mabel Murple, illustrated by Maryann Kovalski. Doubleday, 1995;new edition illus. Sydney Smith 2010
• I Am Small, illustrated by Kim LaFave. Doubleday, 1994
• There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen!, illustrated by Marc Mongeau. Doubleday, 1992; new ed. illus. Sydney Smith 2010
• Merry-Go-Day, illustrated by Molly Lamb Bobak. Doubleday Canada, 1991
• Sleeping Dragons All Around, illustrated by Michelle Nidenoff. Doubleday, 1989
• Toes in My Nose and Other Poems, illustrated by Molly Lamb. Doubleday, 1987; new ed. illus. Sydney Smith 2012

Educational

• Breathe, Stretch, Write. Pembroke. (for teachers)
• The Poetry Experience, Larry Swartz and Sheree Fitch (for teachers)
• Writing Maniac: How I grew up to be a writer (and you can, too!), Pembroke Publishers, 2000 (for students)
• Everybody's Different on Everybody Street, illustrated by Laura Jolicoeur. Commission The Nova Scotia Hospital Foundation, 2001

Plays

• Like A little Candle
• When Dinosaurs Dine by Moonlight
• The Monkeys are Back and We're Out of Bananas
• Rummabubba Lid-Maker of the Snufflewogs