GAYLA REID was born in Australia and grew up in Armidale, New South Wales, where her parents both worked on the local newspaper. She came to Canada over 30 years ago but often returns to her first home, especially in her writing. Her work has garnered major Canadian literary awards, including the Journey Prize and the 2005 Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career.

Her first work of fiction, the collection To Be There With You was published in Canada by Douglas and McIntyre in 1994, and in Australia by Allen and Unwin in 1996. It won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Her novel, All the Seas of the World, was published by Stoddart in 2001, to critical acclaim.

Closer Apart: The Ardara Variations was published by Stoddart in April 2002.

In addition to writing fiction, Gayla Reid is active in public legal education as a plain language writer.

On this site, the books page provides more information about the fiction.

Gayla’s fiction has won the Marian Engel Award, the Journey Prize, the CBC Literary Competition, and a National Magazine Award.

"This novel is so replete with sleights of narrative, with eccentric characters, with astonishing insight… with Reid's trademark writing – sardonic, muscular, knowing – that to praise it is to become an exercise in repetitive superlatives...."

You may contact Gayla by email, listed on the contacts page.