Gail Bowen

Born Gail Barthlomew in Toronto in 1942, Gail learned to read by age three from tombstones in Prospect Cemetery, a facility that was extremely useful when she was struck by polio two years later.

She was educated at the University of Toronto (B.A.), University of Waterloo (M.A.), and the University of Saskatchewan, where she almost completed a Ph.D. After a series of extension-course teaching contracts in small-town locations across Saskatchewan and a ten-year sessional stint with the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, University of Regina, she was granted tenure in the English department of the university in 1986, one year before the publication of 1919; The Love Letters of George and Adelaide, a novella written in collaboration with Ron Marken. She recently retired from the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College where she was an associate professor and head of the English department.

Gail’s award-winning crime series features Joanne Kilbourn, a university professor/sometime political columnist as well as wife, mother and grandmother. Each of the 11 books in the series offers challenging puzzles and motives with a fair sprinkling of clues, but it is the added elements of the books with which her readers empathize: complex family interactions alongside every-day domestic details, prairie urban life and work, the ever-present prairie weather, and the often-uneasy presence of the aboriginal peoples.

The first six books in the Kilbourn series have appeared as made-for-television movies with world-wide distribution, while Burying Ariel (2000), The Glass Coffin (2002), The Last Good Day (2004), and The Endless Knot (2006) have met with critical and commercial success. In June 2008, Reader’s Digest named Gail Bowen “Canada’s Best Mystery Novelist.”

Gail’s short story “The King of Charles Street West,” which appeared in Toronto Noir (2008) published by Akashic Books, New York, was singled out for special praise by Publishers’ Weekly.

Gail has had four plays produced at Regina’s Globe Theatre – Dancing in Poppies (1993) which was presented in a special performance for Prince Edward, Beauty and the Beast (1993); The Tree (1994) and an adaptation of Peter Pan (1997). Manitoba Theatre for Young People chose Peter Pan as its 2000 Christmas production. The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario presented Dancing in Poppies in 2002 and Peter Pan in 2003.

Gail’s adaptation of Doctor Doolittle was broadcast on CBC’s Showcase in April 2006, and the University of Regina produced a theatrical version of the play simultaneously. Saving Lonesome George, Bowen’s original play about the last of the Galapagos tortoises, was produced by Persephone Theatre in 2008 and will be produced by Carousel Players in 2008–2009.

Her radio play The Word according to Charlie D was broadcast on CBC’s Showcase in October 2006. Her Long Time Listener/First Time Caller is CBC’s World Play for 2008. A 10-part radio series featuring Charlie Dohauniuk is currently in development.

She is currently working with Verite Films (producers of Corner Gas) on an animated film, The Longest Night of the Year.

Gail lives in Regina with her husband of 40 years and spends at least part of each day with her four grandchildren. She realizes she's blessed.

Photo credit: Phyllis Thompson

Selected Bibliography
The Joanne Kilbourne series:
Deadly Appearances, 1990
Murder at the Mendel, 1991
The Wandering Soul Murders, 1992
A Colder Kind of Death. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994
A Killing Spring. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1996
Verdict in Blood. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998
Burying Ariel. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000
Pale Criminal. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2002
The Last Good Day. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004
The Endless Knot. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006
The Brutal Heart. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, August 2008

Awards
Winner, Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, 1995, for A Colder Kind of Death
Named Canada’s Best Mystery Novelist by Reader’s Digest, 2008

Website:
http://www.gailbowen.com/

Email:
bowen.gail@gmail.com