Audrey Whitson

Audrey Whitson’s novel, The Death of Annie the Water Witcher by Lightning, was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize in 2020. Whitson’s collection of coming-of-age stories, The Glorious Mysteries, was longlisted for the 2014 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her first book, Teaching Places, a memoir about how the land teaches, was shortlisted for three awards in 2004, including the Grant MacEwan Authors Award. Her poetry, stories, and essays have been published in many magazines and anthologies. Audrey was the MacEwan Writer in Residence in 2023. She is currently working on a new collection of short stories, a collection of personal essays, and a play about sexual exploitation.

Audrey lives in amiskwacîwâskahikan (also known as Edmonton), in Treaty 6 territory.

From the Blog

Audrey's musings

22 September

Fall Equinox 2023: Walking the River

  Last weekend I walked part of the Edmonton Camino, a five-day walk through the city’s North Saskatchewan River valley, from Devon (where the trail is still unfinished) to Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The Cree have a name for this river, Kisiskâciwanisîpiy or Swift Flowing River and the trails that accompany it, Amisko Wacîw Mêskanaw, meaning […]

20 June

Summer Solstice 2023: Wild Fire

In early May when the smoke was so heavy over Edmonton, the air quality at 10 or 10+ for days, I was weighted by the reality. I stayed inside, used the gym, kept my windows closed. Waited for respite. Rains came but so did high temperatures. And then when wildfires gradually spread across the country […]

19 March

Spring Equinox 2023: The Pull

I was out walking on Saturday on the way to the grocery store, lost in thought, when I came alongside a young man (who from the looks of it was homeless), stopped for a smoke. He was excited, watching something above him. “Look at this!” I heard it first, in the poplars. The magpies talking […]