Linda Spalding (born 25 June 1943) is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 writer and editor. Born in Topeka

Topeka, Kansas

Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, the daughter of Jacob Alan Dickinson

Jacob Alan Dickinson

Jacob Alan Dickinson was a Topeka, Kansas attorney and president of the Topeka Board of Education at the time of the Supreme Court desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education . Dickinson was a key supporter of elementary school integration which had begun locally before the Supreme...

 and Edith Senner, she lived in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 and Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 before moving to Toronto, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 in 1982.

She has two daughters, Esta

Esta Spalding

Esta Alice Spalding is a Canadian author, screenwriter and poet who won the Pat Lowther Award in 2000 for Lost August. Born in Boston, Massachusetts to Phillip Spalding and Linda Spalding, she grew up in Hawaii and currently resides in Guelph, Ontario....

 and Kristin Spalding, from her first marriage to photographer Philip Spalding. Linda Spalding is currently married to Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...

; Linda, Esta and Michael are also on the editorial board of the national literary magazine, Brick

Brick (magazine)

Brick is a Canadian literary magazine published twice a year out of Toronto, Ontario.The magazine publishes book reviews, poetry, memoirs, fiction, essays and interviews with both Canadian and international writers. It was founded in London, Ontario By Stan Dragland and Jean McKay in 1977 and was...

.

Spalding's work has been honoured numerous times; her non-fiction work, 'The Follow', was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award

Trillium Book Award

The Trillium Award is given annually by the government of the Province of Ontario and is open to books in any genre: fiction, non-fiction, drama, children's books, and poetry. Anthologies, new editions, re-issues and translations are not eligible. Three jury members per language judge the...

 and the Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize. She has since received the Harbourfront Festival Prize for her contribution to the Canadian literary community.

Spalding has worked as a professor of English and writing at the University of Hawaii

University of Hawaii

The University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...

, York University

York University

York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

, the University of Guelph

University of Guelph

The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...

, Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 (where she was writer-in-residence in 1991), the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 and Ryerson University

Ryerson University

Ryerson University is a public research university located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its urban campus is adjacent to Yonge-Dundas Square located at the busiest intersection in Downtown Toronto. The majority of its buildings are in the blocks northeast of the square in Toronto's Garden...

. She has also taught creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 at Humber College

Humber College

Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning is a polytechnic college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Humber offers more than 150 programs including: bachelor’s degree, diploma, certificate, post-graduate certificate and apprenticeship programs, across 40 fields of study. Humber serves...

's School for Writers. Prior to this, she has worked as a manager for Hawaii Public Television and as the director of a child care services agency in Kailua, Hawaii.