Gray, Charlotte 1948-

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Gray, Charlotte 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born 1948, in England; married George Anderson (a nongovernmental organization officer); children: three sons. Education: Oxford University, B.A.; postgraduate study at London School of Economics.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

CAREER:

Writer. Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, adjunct research professor of history; commentator on radio and television.

MEMBER:

Canadian National History Society (member of the board), Dominion Institute (member of the board).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Elizabeth Bagshaw Media Award, Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada, 1985, for a Flare article; Catherine Pakenham Award for the Most Promising Woman Journalist under thirty, Sunday Telegraph, 1988, for series of columns in the Evening Standard; Author's Award, Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters, 1991, for a Saturday Night article; Robertine Barry Prize, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, 1996, for a Chatelaine article; National Magazine Award, 1996, for a Saturday Night article; Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction from Wilfrid Laurier University, Birks Foundation Award for Best Non-fiction Book, and Canadian Authors' Association, all 1997-98, all for Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King; Print Media Award, Ottawa Life Sciences Council, 1998, for a Saturday Night article; Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario History, Champlain Society, Libris Award for Best Non-fiction Book, Canadian Booksellers Association, all 2000, all for Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill; National Magazine Award, 2000, for a Canadian Geographic article; Medal for Canadian Biography, the University of British Columbia, Drummer General's Award for Non-fiction, all 2002, all for Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake; Best Book on Federal Politics, History and Government, Hill Times, Best Book of 2003, Vancouver Sun, Best Book of 2003, Globe and Mail, all 2003, all for Canada: A Portrait in Letters, 1800-2000; Pierre Berton Award, Canadian National History Society, 2003, for popularizing Canadian history; Lela Common Award for Canadian History, Canadian Authors' Association, Best Book of 2004, Vancouver Sun, Best Book of 2004, Quill & Quire, all 2004, all for The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder; Best Book of 2006, Globe and Mail, 2006, for Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention; recipient of honorary degrees from Mount St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia, the University of Ottawa, Queens University, and York University, Ontario; Order of Canada.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, Viking (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, Viking (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1999.

Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake, HarperFlamingo Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Canada: A Portrait in Letters, 1800-2000, Doubleday Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2003.

The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder, book concept and curation by Sara Angel, Random House Canada, 2004.

Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention, Arcade Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to House Guests: The Grange, 1817 to Today, Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001; and Dropped Threads and Great Questions of Canada. Contributor to magazines and newspapers, including Saturday Night.

ADAPTATIONS:

Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill was adapted as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) docudrama.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charlotte Gray is the author of several award-winning books and best sellers primarily focused on Canada's social history. Her first book, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, about the mother of Canada's longest-serving prime minister, was published in 1997 and won two awards—the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction from Wilfrid Laurier University and the Birks Foundation Award for Best Non-fiction Book from the Canadian Authors' Association.

In Gray's biography about the Mohawk poet and performer Pauline Johnson, Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake, she "uses a mixture of history, literary criticism, and standard biographical detail to deliver a rich account of Johnson's life and work and the surrounding milieu," observed Suzanne Methot in her review of the book for Canadian Geographic. Johnson was born in 1861 on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, to a Mohawk father and a British mother. Despite growing up in a time when Indians were subject to racism, Johnson rose to fame with her unique performances inspired by her life as a mixed-race woman caught between two ethnicities. She eventually settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she died in 1913 from breast cancer at the age of 52. According to Herizons reviewer Debra Isabel Huron, Gray "succeeds in telling the story of her subject's life in a more holistic and dramatic way than other works" about Johnson. "Flint & Feather is an impressive offering from a writer with an uncanny ability to put herself in Johnson's white satin pumps and smoked leather moccasins," Pamela Sexsmith wrote in Wind Speaker.

Standing as the first major biography on Alexander Graham Bell in thirty years, 2006's Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention "probes the life of a man whose inventions changed the world," as a reviewer for California Bookwatch put it. Gray "opens many fascinating windows into Alexander Graham Bell's life and times," remarked A.J.B. (John) Johnston in his review of the book for Beaver: Exploring Canada's History. "Beyond Gray's portrayal of his insatiable scientific curiosity, she presents Bell as a humanitarian dedicated to improving the lives of the deaf," added Johnston. Bell was technically not Canadian, but he spent extensive periods in Canada throughout his life and was laid to rest there in 1922 on his estate in Beinn Bhreagh—a rural Canadian community in Victoria County, Nova Scotia. Bell's wife, Mabel Hubbard, a deaf student he fell in love with in Boston in the 1870s, is also a focal point of the book, so much so that several critics considered the book two biographies rolled into one. "Chapter after chapter, Gray demonstrates how central Mabel was to Bell's success," observed Johnston.

Gray told CA: "I started writing accessible history because I arrived in Canada as an adult and couldn't find anything that told me about the aspects of Canadian history I am interested in. What was it like to be a pioneer in North America? What role did women play? How did women artists, such as the poet Pauline Johnson, achieve fame in a rugged, macho society? How did a country of immigrants meld together?

"My first biographies, which were ostensibly explorations of women's lives, portrayed the evolution of Canada from an impoverished society of immigrants into a sophisticated modern nation.

Since then I have broadened out into transnational history. I wrote about Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel because I was fascinated by the impact of technological advances in the nineteenth century, as well as the intimate relationship between a brilliant eccentric and his deaf wife (who could never use her husband's greatest invention). However, whatever I write, I begin with the questions with which most of us begin our inquiries about how our world works today. Who are we? Where did we come from?"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, February-March, 2003, Peter Unwin, review of Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake, p. 45; December 1, 2003, "Joie De Livre," interview with Charlotte Gray, p. 30; October 1, 2006, A.J.B. (John) Johnston, review of Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention, p. 47.

Booklist, August 1, 2006, Gilbert Taylor, review of Reluctant Genius, p. 22.

California Bookwatch, February 1, 2007, review of Reluctant Genius.

Canadian Geographic, September 1, 2002, Suzanne Methot, review of Flint & Feather, p. 114.

Herizons, spring, 2003, Debra Isabel Huron, review of Flint & Feather.

Quill & Quire, July/August, 2006, Anita Lahey, "Understanding Genuis," profile of author.

Wind Speaker, January 1, 2003, Pamela Sexsmith, "Who Was the Real Pauline Johnson?," p. 23.