Shawna Lemay is the author of the novel, Rumi and the Red Handbag, which has made Harper’s Bazaar’s #THELIST (must-reads for Fall 2015), the “Most Anticipated” list on the popular Canadian book website, 49th Shelf, and has been selected for Maria Shriver’s fall reading club. Nathalie Atkinson chose Rumi and the Red Handbag for Fall’s Must-Read Fashion Books in the Globe and Mail. She has also written six books of poetry, a book of essays, and an experimental novel titled, Hive, which is about the possibility of the existence of a woman art forger. All the God-Sized Fruit, her first book, won the Stephan G. Stephansson Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Calm Things: Essays was shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction. She has an M.A. in English from the University of Alberta.