Alison Pick

Alison Pick (born 1975) is a Canadian novelist and poet. She has published two novels, a memoir, and two collections of poetry.

Pick was born in Toronto, Ontario and grew up in Kitchener. In 1999, she graduated from the University of Guelph with a B.A. in psychology. Pick received her MA in Philosophy from Memorial University in Newfoundland. During her teenage years, Pick discovered that her father's Czech family was originally Jewish although he had been raised a Christian. Pick herself later converted to Judaism.

Pick is most recently the author of Between Gods, a memoir about depression, family secrets, and forging a new identity from the ashes of the past. It won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Memoir, and was shortlisted for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and for the Wingate Prize in the UK.Between Gods was also a Top Book of 2014 at the CBC and The Globe and Mail.

Pick's novel Far to Go won the Canadian Jewish Book Award and was nominated for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

The title section of Pick's poetry collection Question & Answer won the 2002 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for Poetry and the 2003 National Magazine Award for Poetry. The book itself was short-listed for the League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry, and for a Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award. Pick also won the 2005 CBC Literary Award for Poetry. Her writing has appeared widely in publications including The Globe and Mail,The Walrus, and enRoute Magazine.

Pick served on the jury for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Pick taught at the Iceland Writers Retreat in Reykjavík, Iceland in the spring of 2015. She is currently a member of the faculty at the Humber School for Writers and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. She lives and writes in Toronto.

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