Heti, Sheila 1976-

PERSONAL:

Born December 25, 1976, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Education: Trinity College, University of Toronto, B.A., 2002; studied play writing at National Theatre School.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Canada. Agent—Anne McDermid & Associates, 83 Willcocks St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 1C9, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Trampoline Hall lecture series, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, founder.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Emerging Author, NOW, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004; KM Hunter Artists Award, 2002.

WRITINGS:

The Middle Stories (short stories), House of Anansi Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001, McSweeney's Books (San Francisco, CA), 2002.

Ticknor, House of Anansi Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Daniel Bejar) All Our Happy Days Are Stupid (musical play), produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Nightwood Theatre, 2006.

Author's books have also been published in Germany, Holland, and Sweden. Contributor to anthology Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction and periodicals, including Brick, Crowd, Nerve, Open Letters, McSweeney's, and the Look.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sheila Heti was born and raised in Toronto, where she returned after a brief span of writing for the theater in Montreal. She also founded the Trampoline Hall Lecture Series, at which people give speeches on subjects in which they are not professionally expert. Heti writes across a variety of genres, including novels, short fiction, and plays. Ticknor, a short novel, takes place in an anachronistic nineteenthcentury Boston and explores the envy that George Ticknor, a relative failure, feels toward his highly successful childhood friend, William Prescott. Herizons critic Zoe Whittal expressed disappointment in the volume, which she had been anticipating with pleasure on the strength of Heti's earlier collection of short stories. "I was continually waiting for something to happen," Whittal lamented. "It doesn't." However, she went on to add: "What kept me reading was how she tells the story, not the story itself. Heti's compositional style is fascinating. She is the master of clean, well-constructed sentences and employs many interesting techniques." Damian Rogers, writing for Eye Weekly, observed: "Heti clearly has a great love of perfection; the near mathematical precision of her work reflects a level of discipline and control of language that is considered unusual in younger writers."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Herizons, summer, 2006, Zoe Whittall, review of Ticknor, p. 33.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2006, review of Ticknor, p. 102.

Library Journal, March 15, 2006, Edward B. St. John, review of Ticknor, p. 63.

ONLINE

Anne McDermid's Associates Home Page, http://www.mcdermidagency.com/ (September 25, 2006), biography of Sheila Heti.

Compulsive Reader, http://www.compulsivereader.com/ (September 25, 2006), Bob Williams, review of Ticknor.

Eye Weekly Online,http://www.eye.net/ (September 25, 2006), Damian Rogers, "Toronto Author Sheila Heti's First Novel Reveals the Necessary Fragility of Community."

Popmatters.com,http://wwww.popmatters.com/ (May 3, 2005), Zachary Houle, "A History Best Left Uncovered."

Sheila Heti Home Page,http://www.sheilaheti.net (September 25, 2006).

Straight,http://www.straight.com/ (September 25, 2006), George Fetherling, review of Ticknor.

University of Toronto Magazine Online, http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/ (September 25, 2006), Micah Toub, "Disappearing Act: After Years at the Heart of Toronto's Indie Culture Scene, Author Sheila Heti Is Leaving Town."

Word Fest,http://www.wordfest.com/ (September 25, 2006), biography of Sheila Heti.