Alice Munro was born Alice Laidlaw in Wingham, Ontario on July 10, 1931. She published her first story, The Dimensions of a Shadow, while a student at the University of Western Ontario in 1950. She left the university in 1951 to get married and start a family. In 1972 she became Writer in Residence at the University of Western Ontario. Her first collection, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), won a Governor General's Award, which is Canada's highest literary prize. Her other works include Lives of Girls and Women, The Beggar Maid, The View from Castle Rock, and Too Much Happiness. She has received several awards including the Governor General's Award for Who Do You Think You Are? and the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 for her lifetime body of work. In 1980 she held the position of Writer in Residence at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. Her stories have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Atlantic Monthly.
Jane Smiley was born in Los Angeles, California on September 26, 1949. She received a B. A. at Vassar College in 1971 and an M. F. A. and a Ph.D from the University of Iowa. From 1981 to 1996, she taught undergrad and graduate creative writing workshops at Iowa State University. Her first critically acclaimed novel, The Greenlanders (1988), was preceded by three other novels and a highly regarded short story collection, The Age of Grief (1987). In 1985, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story Lily, which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her novel A Thousand Acres (1991) received both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her other works include Moo; Horse Heaven; and Ordinary Love and Good Will. Ms. Smiley's latest novel is entitled, Private Life.
