Steven Heighton

Steven Heighton (born August 14, 1961) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and short story writer. He is the author of ten books, including two short story collections, three novels, and five poetry collections. His most recent novel, Every Lost Country, was published in 2010.

Life and work
Heighton was born in Toronto, Ontario, and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degree, at Queens University.

Heighton's most recent books are the novel Every Lost Country (May 2010) and the poetry collection Patient Frame (April 2010).

Heighton is also the author of the novel Afterlands (2006),which appeared in six countries. The book has recently been optioned for film. Steven 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. His books have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Award, the Journey Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and Britain’s W.H. Smith Award (best book of the year). He has received the Gerald Lampert Award, gold medals for fiction and for poetry in the National Magazine Awards, the Air Canada Award, and the 2002 Petra Kenney Prize. Flight Paths of the Emperor has been listed at Amazon.ca as one of the ten best Canadian short story collections.

Heighton has been the writer-in-residence at McArthur College, Queen's University, the University of Ottawa, and the Royal Military College of Canada. He has also participated in several workshops including the Summer Literary Seminars, poetry work shop, in St. Petersburg, Russia (2007), and the Writing with Style, short fiction workshop, in Banff, Alberta (2007).

Heighton currently lives in Kingston, Ontario with his family.

Heighton on writing
“Interest is never enough. If it doesn't haunt you, you'll never write it well. What haunts and obsesses you into writing may, with luck and labour, interest your readers. What merely interests you is sure to bore them.”

Poetry

 * Stalin’s Carnival. Kingston, ON: Quarry Press, 1989.
 * Foreign Ghosts (an utaniki, or "song-diary:" Asian travelogue in poetry and prose). Ottawa: Oberon, 1990.
 * The Ecstasy of Skeptics. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1994.
 * Address Book. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004.
 * Paper Lanterns: Twenty-Five Postcards from Asia (with Mary Huggard: chapbook of photographs and revised poems from Foreign Ghosts). Windsor, ON: Palimpsest Press, 2006.
 * Patient Frame. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2010.

Novels

 * The Shadow Boxer. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2000; London: Granta Books, 2000.
 * Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002; Rome: Edizioni e/o, 2003.
 * Afterlands. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2005; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006; London: Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, 2006; Amsterdam: Ambo Anthos, 2006; Germany: Rowholt, 2007.
 * Every Lost Country. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2010.

Short stories
The Stages of J Gordon Whitehead (letterpress edition of a short story). Frog Hollow Press, 2008.
 * Flight Paths of the Emperor (linked short stories). Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill, 1992.
 * Quebec: L'instant meme, 1995; London: Granta Books, 1997, 2000; Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2001.
 * On earth as it is. Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 1992.
 * Quebec: L'instant meme, 1997; London: Granta Books, 1997; Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2001.
 * The Dead Are More Visible. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2012.

Essays

 * The Admen Move on Lhasa: Writing & Culture in a Virtual World. Toronto: House of Anansi Press. 1997.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the University of Toronto.