Kyo
Maclear
Kyo Maclear is an essayist, novelist, and children’s author whose books have been published in multiple languages around the world. She mentors and teaches through the University of Guelph’s Creative Writing MFA program and Humber College’s School for Writers, and is active on the board of Word Play, a community-based nonprofit in downtown Toronto that works with school children to foster a love of writing and reading. Maclear was a finalist for the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction for her memoir Birds Art Life. She lives in Toronto.
Videos
Kyo Maclear and her award-nominated memoir “Birds Art Life”
Award History
Jury Citation
“Birds Art Life is a poetic and philosophical ode to life and art, with birds as the motivating force. Facing creative inertia and “existential chagrin,” Kyo Maclear develops a bad case of wanderlust. A year spent birding in and around Toronto becomes a transformative journey—finding movement in stillness, meaning in simplicity. Ruminating on her newfound love of birds, and a broader appreciation for ‘the audacity of aiming tiny in an age of big ambitions,’ Maclear gives us an expansive and generous gift, a melancholy and joyful salve for living. With elegant, evocative prose, roaming curiosity, and quietly wild erudition, Birds Art Life is a beautiful book—lucid, exalting, and true.” – 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury (Susan Harada, Arno Kopecky, and Siobhan Roberts)
