Nino Ricci: writer-in-residence at University of Toronto Scarborough
Published: January 21, 2015
When it comes to sources of inspiration, author Nino Ricci says there鈥檚 plenty to be found in the budding writers who look to him for guidance.
The celebrated Canadian author begins the semester as the next writer-in-residence at U of T Scarborough.
鈥淚 think residencies are as much of a learning experience for me as they are for the students,鈥 says Ricci, author of five novels and one work of non-fiction. 鈥淭hey force me to think about my own writing process more deeply and also reacquaint me with a wider world that writing itself often cuts me off from.鈥
Ricci has plenty of experience mentoring aspiring writers having served as a writer-in-residence for the Toronto and Kitchener public library systems. He鈥檚 also a past president of the Canadian Centre of International PEN, known as PEN Canada 鈥 a writers鈥 human rights organization that works for freedom of expression.
鈥淚鈥檓 very much looking forward to my time at U of T Scarborough,鈥 adds Ricci. 鈥淗opefully I can pass on whatever bit of insight I鈥檝e gleaned in my own years as a writer.鈥
The appointment of Ricci follows a successful term by UTSC鈥檚 inaugural writer-in-residence, Miriam Toews. Ricci will be available throughout the winter term to visit classes, run workshops, hold office hours and provide one-on-one manuscript consultations with student writers. He will also be dedicating time to his next creative endeavour.
Ricci鈥檚 first novel was the internationally acclaimed , which spent 75 weeks on the Globe and Mail鈥榮 bestseller list and won the Governor General鈥檚 Award for Fiction. The novel was published in 17 countries and was the first volume of a trilogy that continued with In a Glass House and Where She Has Gone, which was nominated for the Giller Prize.
His novel Testament, a fictional retelling of the life of Jesus, was a winner of the Trillium Award as well as a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. Ricci鈥檚 most recent novel is the national bestseller The Origin of Species, which earned him the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award as well as his second Governor General鈥檚 Award for Fiction. He is also the author of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a short biography that forms part of Penguin鈥檚 extraordinary Canadians series, edited by John Ralston Saul.
