About


Joanna Lilley's fifth book and third poetry collection, Endlings, was published by Turnstone Press in 2020 and won the Fred Kerner Book Award. Joanna is also the author of a novel, Worry Stones (Ronsdale Press), which was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and a short story collection, The Birthday Books (Hagios Press). Joanna's other poetry collections are If There Were Roads (Turnstone Press), and The Fleece Era (Brick Books) which was nominated for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Joanna loves sharing the joy of words has given readings, talks and workshops as far afield as Alaska and Iceland. As well as an MLitt degree in creative writing from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, she has a postgraduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and diplomas in journalism and plain language editing. She's a founding board member of Yukon Words and in 2021 won the Borealis Prize, the Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution. Born in the south of England, Joanna lived in Wales and Scotland before moving to Whitehorse, Yukon, in Canada where she's grateful to reside on the Traditional Territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council. 

Read poems by Joanna

Listen to Joanna read her work

    What Joanna is working on

    Joanna is currently working on a novel with the support of a Canada Council for the Arts grant and an Access Copyright Foundation grant. She's deeply grateful for this support. 

    Joanna is also working on a poetry manuscript and a family project with her niece Leonora Lilley.