Name Martha Baillie | Role Poet | |
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Books The Search for Heinrich Schlogel, The Incident Report, The Shape I Gave You, Madame Balashovskaya's Apartment, My Sister - Esther |
The Incident Report - Martha Baillie interview by Melanie Janisse
Martha Baillie (born 1960) is a Canadian poet and novelist.
![Martha Baillie Martha Baillie The Search for Heinrich Schlgel A Novel](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-a20a0df2-fb8e-4426-9cac-26a95c97511-resize-750.jpeg)
Baillie was born in Toronto, Ontario. She studied history, French and Russian at the University of Edinburgh, and completed her studies at the Sorbonne, Paris and the University of Toronto. It was there that she became involved in theatre. In 1981, after an extended trip through Asia, she decided to shift her focus from acting to writing. After her return - and a brief interlude as a French immersion and ESL teacher - she took up a position at the Toronto Public Library where she is currently employed. Her writing has been published in Canada, Germany and Hungary.
![Martha Baillie, author of If Clara, Coach House](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-1cfdf7bf-e05c-47ee-9af7-843d32b63d7-resize-750.jpg)
Her most popular novel to date is The Shape I Gave You (2006), listed as a national bestseller by Macleans magazine in May 2006.
![Martha Baillie Bio Martha Baillie](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-aec58cee-08b3-4eb6-b471-70a50527062-resize-750.jpeg)
In The Incident Report (2009), Baillie uses the format of 144 short reports to recount incidents from her own experiences as a librarian. As a work of fiction the novel contains conventional elements such as "a love story and a mystery"; as a report, it presents a subtext depicting "how Toronto libraries have become a refuge for the city's marginalized".The Incident Report was long listed for the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
![Martha Baillie An Interview with Martha Baillie author of The Search for Heinrich](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-10ac9572-55e3-48e8-87ce-e478994a64c-resize-750.jpeg)
Besides five novels, Baillie has had poems published in journals including Descant, Prairie Fire and The Antigonish Review. Other literary work includes a treatment on The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach, an installation environment by Iris Häussler, first published in Brick in 2007.
![Martha Baillie Toronto Lit Up Martha Baillie Camilla Grudova International](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-529bd2ed-f414-468a-97b0-795f06eb161-resize-750.jpeg)
The author lives in Toronto.
![Martha Baillie Martha Baillie International Festival of Authors](https://alchetron.com/cdn/martha-baillie-e0885917-6945-4176-bdfe-9317fe1a0f2-resize-750.jpeg)