Lauren Carter – 2015 Major Arts Grant Recipient

Lauren Carter is a writer of fiction, poetry, non-fiction articles and essays that have been published in a wide variety of literary journals, magazines, and websites. Her poetry has made the long and shortlists for several prizes including the ReLit Award, the CBC poetry prize, the CBC Short Story Prize, and THIS Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Lauren has a B.A. in English Literature and Cultural Studies from Trent University and an MFA in writing from the University of Guelph-Humber. In 2013 Lauren released her first novel, Swarm, about life in a post-oil world of economic collapse and social unrest, which was included in the CBC Canada Reads list of the top 40 books that could change Canada. Lauren currently lives in The Pas.

Major Arts Grant Project: Novel This Has Nothing to Do With You

Lauren’s Major Arts Grant will support work on the creation of her second novel titled This Has Nothing to Do with You. This novel grew out of a series of three linked short stories, the first of which won the Prairie Fire fiction contest in 2013.This Has Nothing to Do with You is a complex novel that looks at how we are tied as human beings to the suffering of others and how we struggle to understand and cope with loss. Set in 1994, the story is narrated by Mel, a young woman who is attempting to understand and heal from the murder of her father by her mother. This Has Nothing to Do with You weaves a complex narrative structure which moves between several plot lines.