bio Anne DeGrace is a writer, illustrator, and librarian living near Nelson, British Columbia. Her first novel, Treading Water (McArthur & Company, 2005), was inspired by Renata, a tiny community that once flourished on Lower Arrow Lake in the B.C. interior before hydroelectric development flooded the town, leaving only its stories. Treading Water was chosen as a “Heather’s Pick” shortly after publication. The book made the top of W. P. Kinsella’s honourable mentions for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award shortlist. In 2010 it was shortlisted for the One Book, One Kootenay Librarian’s Choice Award. Anne’s second novel, Wind Tales (McArthur, 2007) examines the points of departure and chance encounters that change the way we see the world, as told through the tales of the disparate travelers who pass through a roadside café on a mountain pass during one extraordinary, windy day. Wind Tails has been shortlisted for the 2008 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. In 2009 Wind Tails was released in the U.S. by HarperCollins/Avon under the title Far From Home. The story in Sounding Line, published by McArthur & Company in 2009, is drawn from Anne’s Nova Scotia roots. With a historical backdrop of a 1967 U.F.O. crash, the novel plays with themes of depth, space, and possibility, viewed through the lives of the residents of a fishing village. Sounding Line was a Chapters/Indigo “Heather’s Pick” and has been optioned for a film. Anne has also co-authored three regional photographic books (Ward Creek Press) and illustrated six children’s books for Polestar Press and for Bluefield books. She has worked as a journalist, writing features, news stories, and editorials, for more than fifteen years. Short stories and essays have appeared in The New Quarterly, Room of One’s Own, and Wascana Review.