Canadian writer (1961–2022)
Steven Heighton (August 14, 1961 – April 19, 2022) was a Canadian fiction writer, poet, and singer-songwriter. He is the author of eighteen books, including three short story collections, four novels, and seven poetry collections. His last work was "Selected Poems 1983-2020" (House of Anansi Press) and an album, "The Devil's Share".
Life and work.
Heighton was born in Toronto, Ontario, and grew up there and in Red Lake, in northern Ontario. He travelled and worked in western Canada and Australia after high school, got a BA and MA from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and then travelled and worked for two years in Asia before settling back in Kingston and starting to write, at first part-time and eventually full-time.
Heighton's most recent books are the novel "The Nightingale Won't Let You Sleep" (2017), the Governor General's Award-winning poetry collection "The Waking Comes Late" (2016), and the Trillium Award finalist "The Dead Are More Visible" (May 2012). Heighton is also the author of the novel "Afterlands" (2006), which appeared in six countries and was cited on best of year lists in ten publications in Canada, the US, and Britain. The book is in pre-production for film. Heighton's debut novel, "The Shadow Boxer" (2001), a story about a young poet-boxer and his struggles growing up, also appeared in five countries.
His work has been translated into ten languages and widely anthologised. He won the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2016. His books have been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Award (twice), the Journey Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and Britain's W.H. Smith Award (best book of the year). He received the Gerald Lampert Award, four gold and one silver award for fiction and for poetry in the National Magazine Awards, the Air Canada Award, the P.K. Page Award, the K.M. Hunter Award, and the Petra Kenney Prize. "Flight Paths of the Emperor" has been listed at Amazon.ca as one of the ten best Canadian short story collections and has been published in Britain by Granta Books.
Heighton has been the writer-in-residence at McGill University, Queen's, Concordia, the University of Ottawa, and Massey College at the University of Toronto. He has also led writing workshops at the Summer Literary Seminars in Saint Petersburg, Russia (2007), the May Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2001), Writing with Style at the Banff Centre, and the Sage Hill Writing Experience in Blackstrap Lake, Saskatchewan (2015 and 2016.)
His nonfiction book "Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos" was shortlisted for the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
In April 2021, Heighton released an album of eleven original songs with Wolfe Island Records/CRS Europe. "The Devil's Share" emerges from "an alchemical bath of blues, rock, folk, country, soul, and Americana." It was recorded at the Post Office Studio, Wolfe Island, Ontario, and produced by Hugh Christopher Brown.
Heighton died on April 19, 2022, at the age of 60 of cancer. He lived in Kingston, Ontario.
References.
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