Alan Cumyn bio
Alan Cumyn is the award-winning author of twelve wide-
ranging and often wildly different novels. His historical novels
The Sojourn and The Famished Lover chronicle the First
World War and Great Depression experiences of artist
Ramsay Crome. His human rights novels, Man of Bone and
Burridge Unbound, follow a torture victim through survival
and post-trauma. Losing It is a darkly funny and truly twisted
novel about madness, while his Owen Skye books for kids--
The Secret Life of Owen Skye, After Sylvia and Dear Sylvia--
hilariously trace the calamitous trials of childhood and the
pangs of early love. Cumyn's young adult novel Tilt
is a funny, sexy exploration of a teenaged boy's obsessions
as he lives through an impossibly absurd time of life. Cumyn’s
latest novel, All Night, a literacy project, follows a young artsy
couple through a stormy night of hard truths and romantic
dreams.
A two-time winner of the Ottawa Book Award, and winner of the Mr. Christie's Book Award for
children's literature, Cumyn has also had work shortlisted for among others the Giller Prize,
the Trillium Award, the Governor General's Award and the TD Children's Literature Award, and
long-listed for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. He teaches through the prestigious
Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and
is a past Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada.
Most recently: Alan Cumyn served as Writer-in-Residence at Mount Royal University in Calgary,
and as Writer-in-Residence at Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon.
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