Charlotte Gray, CM (born January 3, 1948) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and author. The ''

Winnipeg Free Press The ''Winnipeg Free Press'' (or WFP; founded as the ''Manitoba Free Press'') is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as ...

'' has called her "one of Canada's best loved writers of popular history and literary biography."

Early life and education

Born in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and educated at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

and the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, Gray came to Canada in 1979.

Career

She worked for a number of years as a journalist, writing a regular column on national politics for '' Saturday Night'' and appearing regularly on radio and television discussion panels. She has also written for '' Chatelaine'', ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

'' and the ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the ''Citizen'' in 1851. The new ...

''. Gray is an adjunct research professor in the Department of History at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

, and holds honorary degrees from

Mount Saint Vincent University Mount Saint Vincent University, often referred to as the Mount, is a public, primarily undergraduate, university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and was established in 1873. Mount Saint Vincent offers undergraduate programs in Arts, S ...

in Halifax, the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottaw ...

and Queen's University. She was awarded the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography in 2002 and the Pierre Berton Prize for distinguished achievement in popularizing and promoting Canadian history in 2003. She has won or been nominated for most of the major non-fiction awards in Canada. In 2004 she served on the jury for the prestigious

Scotiabank Giller Prize The Giller Prize (sponsored as the Scotiabank Giller Prize), is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried competition be ...

. In 2007, she was made a Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

. In 2004, Gray appeared on the CBC Television series ''

The Greatest Canadian ''The Greatest Canadian'' is a 2004 television series consisting of 13 episodes produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to determine who is considered to be the greatest Canadian of all time, according to those who watched and p ...

'' advocating for Sir

John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...

, Canada's first

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Personal life

Gray lives in New Edinburgh, a neighbourhood in Ottawa. She is married to George Anderson, the president of an organization called the Forum of Federations, and former Deputy Minister of

Natural Resources Canada Natural Resources Canada (NRCan; french: Ressources naturelles Canada; french: RNCan, label=none)Natural Resources Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Natural Resources (). is the dep ...

and before that of Intergovernmental Affairs. They have three sons.

Bibliography

* ''

Mrs. King ''Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King'' is a non-fiction book, written by Canadian writer Charlotte Gray, first published in 1997 by Penguin Books. In the book, the author chronicles the life of William Lyon Mackenzie's daught ...

: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King.'' 1997 * ''Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill.'' 1999 * ''Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake.'' 2002 * ''Canada, A Portrait in Letters.'' 2003 * ''The Museum Called Canada.'' 2004 * ''Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell'' 2006 * ''Extraordinary Canadians:

Nellie McClung Nellie Letitia McClung (; 20 October 18731 September 1951) was a Canadian author, politician, and social activist, who is regarded as one of Canada's most prominent suffragists. She began her career in writing with the 1908 book ''Sowing Seeds ...

'' 2008 * ''Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike'' 2010 * ''The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country'' 2013 * ''The Promise of Canada'' 2016 * ''Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise'', HarperCollins, 2019 (Covers the life and death of Sir Harry Oakes)

Literary awards, honours

* Charlotte Gray won the 1998

Edna Staebler Award The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is an annual literary award recognizing the previous year's best creative nonfiction book with a "Canadian locale and/or significance" that is a Canadian writer's "first or second published book of ...

for

Creative Non-Fiction Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or literary journalism or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contra ...

for ''Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King''.''Wilfrid Laurier University''
1998: Charlotte Gray, (retrieved 11/17/2012) * ''Sisters in the Wilderness'', listed among the "Top 25" in the past 25 years,

Literary Review of Canada The ''Literary Review of Canada'' is a Canadian magazine that publishes ten times a year in print and online. The magazine features essays and reviews of books on political, cultural, social, and literary topics, as well as original Canadian poet ...

: ''the 25 most influential Canadian books'', 2016

References

External links

Author site

HarperCollins Canada site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Charlotte 1948 births Canadian women historians Living people English emigrants to Canada Alumni of the London School of Economics Carleton University alumni Members of the Order of Canada Writers from Ottawa