Anne Fleming (writer)

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Anne Fleming (born 25 March 1964) is a Canadian fiction writer.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, she attended the University of Waterloo, first enrolling in a geography program then moving to English studies. In 1991, she moved to British Columbia. She teaches at the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus at Kelowna. She formerly taught at the Victoria School of Writing.^[1]

Her fiction has been widely published in magazines and anthologies, including Toronto Life magazine, The Journey Prize Stories, and The New Quarterly, where it won a National Magazine Award.^[2]

Her first book, Pool-Hopping and Other Stories, was a finalist at the 1999 Governor General's Awards; it was also a contender for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Danuta Gleed Award.^[3] While many praised it, the novel and Fleming also garnered criticism for “championing the uniqueness of lesbianism” while rendering the male characters as “insensitive, adolescent klutzes.^[4] The book was also criticized in the LGBT community for not being political enough. Fleming herself felt that, while politics were important, they should not come at the expense of the literary work itself.^[4]

Aside from her literary endeavors, Fleming has hosted a radio program, played defense for the Vancouver Voyagers women's hockey team, and also plays the ukulele. She has a partner and child. Fleming's great-grandfather was the mayor of Toronto, and Toronto figures prominently in her writing.^[5]