Olive Senior

Olive Senior was born in Jamaica and attended Montego Bay High School where she launched her own literary magazine.   After graduation, she was hired by one of Jamaica’s leading newspapers, The Daily Gleaner.

She earned a B.S. in Journalism from Carleton University in Canada and then returned to Jamaica to work in a variety of positions related to journalism, publishing and teaching.  She has been writer in residence at several institutions, most recently at the University of Adelaide, Australia. She is currently on the faculty of the Humber School for Writers, Humber College, Toronto, and conducts writing workshops internationally.

Senior, one of Caribbean literature’s leading feminist voices, is the prize-winning author of a dozen books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction with two new books scheduled for publication – a novel, Dancing Lessons (2011) and a children’s picture book, Birthday Suit (2012). Her short story collections include Summer Lightning (winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize), Arrival of the Snake-Woman and Discerner of Hearts. Her poetry books include Talking of Trees, Gardening in the Tropics (winner of the F.J. Bressani Literary Prize), Over the Roofs of the World (finalist for Canada’s Governor-General’s Literary Award and Cuba’s Casa de la Americas Prize) and Shell (finalist for the Pat Lowther Award).  Her non-fiction works include Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-speaking Caribbean and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.

She is the recipient of many fellowships and awards including the Gold Medal of the Institute of Jamaica. Olive Senior’s stories and poems have been broadcast widely, including the BBC Book at Bedtime and CBC Radio, among others. Her work has been translated into several languages, published in numerous literary journals and anthologies and widely used in schools and universities.

Olive Senior now lives in Toronto but spends a lot of time in Jamaica.