Bill Gaston

Bill Gaston (born 1953) is a Canadianpoet, novelist, playwright and short story writer.

Life
Gaston grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto, Ontario, and North Vancouver, British Columbia. He attended the University of British Columbia, where he received a B.A. in 1975, an M.A. in 1978, and an M.F.A. in 1981.

Gaston currently teaches creative writing at the University of Victoria. He previously served as director of the creative writing program at the University of New Brunswick, and as editor of The Fiddlehead.

He is married to Dede Gaston, who writes as Dede Crane, is the author of several novels including the nationally acclaimed Sympathy, which was a finalist for the Victoria Butler Book Prize, and the teen novel The 25 pains of Kennedy Baines. Her most recent books are The Cult of Quick Repair, a collection of stories and (as co-editor) Great Expectations, a collection of essays about the experience of giving birth. Her first published story was short-listed for the CBC Literary Award, and she has since published stories in numerous literary journals, as well as reviewing books for The Globe and Mail, The Shambhala Sun, and The Times Colonist. Her latest teen novel will be out in the spring of 2009.

Recognition
His story collection Mount Appetite (2002) was nominated for the 2002 Giller Prize and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Gaston received a second Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize nomination for his novel Sointula (2004). He was the recipient of the inaugural Timothy Findley Award in 2003.

Poetry

 * Inviting Blindness (1995)

Novels

 * Tall Lives (1990)
 * The Cameraman (1994)
 * Bella Combe Journal (1996)
 * The Good Body (2000)
 * Sointula (2004)
 * The Order of Good Cheer (2008)

Short stories

 * Deep Cove Stories (1989)
 * North of Jesus' Beans (1994)
 * Sex is Red (1998)
 * Mount Appetite (2002)
 * Gargoyles (2006) (nominated for the 2006 Governor General's Award for fiction)

Drama

 * Yardsale (1994)
 * Ethnic Cleansing
 * I am Danielle Steel

Non-fiction

 * Midnight Hockey: All About Beer, the Boys and the Real Canadian Game^ (2006)