Writers Born Today - Gail Bowen

It's the birthday of playwright and mystery novelist Gail Bowen, born September 22, 1942 in Toronto. She developed an early interest in death in part because she learned to read by perusing the tombstones in Prospect Cemetery (really...you can't make this stuff up).

Fortunately, she turned this curiosity into a literary career, rather than become a serial killer. Her readers are very grateful. And the books are quite good, which is just icing on the cake.

Although she grew up in Toronto, her best selling mystery novels are set in Saskatchewan, in the west of Canada. Her protagonist is Joanne Kilbourn, a college professor and widow. Raising three teenagers would be enough to drive her (or anyone) to murder, but instead, she solves them. In 1995 she won the Arthur Ellis Award for A Colder Kind of Death, in which Joanne is a suspect. In 2009, she won the Derrick Murdoch Award for her contributions to the crime genre.

Her novels have been praised for tackling some weighty social issues, including racism and child prostitution, and also for her descriptions of the Canadian prairie. Several of the Kilbourn books have been filmed for television movies. Her latest in the series, The Winner's Circle, was released in August of this year.

“Joanne is really someone who, when she sees injustice or inequity, rolls up her sleeves and tries to do what she can to right what she perceives as wrong. I see that as a very Canadian attitude.”

                    - Gail Bowen