About Carol

Awards & Publications

  • First Prize for Non-Fiction: An Omelet for Mama (Shuswap Association of Writers Anthology, 2025)

  • Longlisted:  Stockholm Writers First Five Pages Contest: Unspoken History (2022)

  • Sample Publications:

    • “The Nass Road,” Canwrite! Short Story Anthology, 2013-4, Canadian Authors’ Association, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

    • “A Dog Has Just One Bite,” Canwrite Short Story Anthology, 2013-4, Canadian Authors’ Association, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

    • “The Soldier and the Angel,” Emerge 2011, The Writing and Publishing Program, Simon Fraser University, 2011, Hiromo Goto, ed.

    • Earth Abides, (poetry collection) 2011

    • “What Lies Behind the Roadside Shrines Created in our Times?” International Journal for the Humanities, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2006 Common Group Publishing, Altona, Australia

    • “Something of Value in Reading,” Hastings Bridge, Simon Fraser University, Number 5, 2005, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Writing Life

A lifelong lover of words, sentences, and stories, Carol has been writing since she learned how, and continually works at honing her craft. In 2022, a draft opening scene of her novel Unspoken History was longlisted for the First Five Pages Pages Prize of the Stockholm Writers Festival.

Publication credits include essays, short stories, and poetry. Carol has been blogging since 2009, often about books. After completing the Writer’s Studio program at Simon Fraser University, she served as a mentor for its affiliated summer program, Southbank Writers, from 2012 - 2017. More recently, she has completed several novel writing courses with Curtis Brown Creative in London. Currently, she is working on the third of three related historical novels, The Secrecy Trilogy.

Other writing affiliations include a long relationship with Canadian Authors Association, where she served as chair of Programs and Publicity. As a volunteer for Canadian Authors, Carol was also the first reviews coordinator for the Whistler Independent Book Awards and Canadian Authors Association, and continues to serve as a reviewer.

Education includes a Bachelor of Arts in English from UBC and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from SFU, Simon Fraser University.

Teaching Life

Since retiring from a career as an English language instructor of adults at a community college, Carol has developed and offered a variety of literature courses for older adults through Continuing Education at SFU.

Courses offered through the Liberal Arts and over 55 program include:

  • Contemporary Fiction with Elif Shafak (Novel readings from Honour, The Forty Rules of Love, The bastard of Istanbul)

  • Contemporary Fiction by Middle Eastern Women (Novel excerpts from from The Kindness of Enemies, by Leila Aboulela, Woman at Point Zero, by Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, and other short readings from Leila Lalani and Shirin Ebadi.)

  • Contemporary Fiction from Sub-Saharan Africa (Novel readings: This Book Betrays my Brother, by Kagiso Lesego Molope, We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo. Other selections: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and Another Country by Sisonke Msimang.)

  • Contemporary Issues in Mystery and Detective Fiction (Novel readings: Dragon Bones by Lisa See, Through a Glass, Darkly by Donna Leon, The Skeleton Road, by Val McDermid, The Dry, by Jane Harper)

  • Learning History by Reading Mystery (Novel excerpts by Iona Whishaw, Ian Rankin, Colin Cotterill, Adrian McKinty, Peter May, Abir Mukherjee, Vaseem Khan, Qiu Xiaolong, Ovidia Yu, and Kwei Quartey, with commentary by various well-known mystery writers)