Books published

• Welcome to the Anthropocene, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2018
• Standard candles, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2015
• The Jade Spindle (YA fantasy e-book), eSisters, 2012
• Intersecting Sets: A poet looks at Science, University of Alberta Press, 2011
• Memory’s Daughter, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2010
• The Office Tower Tales, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2008
• The Occupied World, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2006
• Some Bones and a Story, Toronto, Wolsak and Wynn, 2001
• No Monster, Victoria, Poppy Press, 2001
• Corona Radiata, Toronto, St. Thomas Press, 2000
• Tales for an Urban Sky. Fredricton: Broken Jaw Press, 1999.
• Lattice of the Years. Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 1999.
• Complete within herself (chapbook). Victoria: Hawthorne Society, 1997.
• Time Travels Light. Edmonton: Rowan, 1992.
• The Chinese Mirror. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1988.

Awards

• Winner, Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry (Book Publishers Association of Alberta), for Standard Candles.
• Winner, National Magazine Award Gold Medal, for “The Ultraviolet Catastrophe” (included in Intersecting Sets: A poet looks at science), 2012
• Winner, Wilfrid Eggleston Award, for Intersecting Sets: A Poet looks at science, 2012
• Winner, Stephan G. Stephansson Award (by the Writers Guild of Alberta), for Memory’s Daughter, 2011
• Winner, Pat Lowther Award, for The Office Tower Tales, 2009
• Winner, Alberta Book Publishers Association Trade Book of the Year (fiction) for The Office Tower Tales, 2009
• Winner, “Poetics of Space” competition, 2004 (Sponsored by CV2)
• Shortlisted, Pat Lowther Award, for Some Bones and a Story, 2002 (National award for best book of poetry by a Canadian woman)
• Winner, Malahat Review Long Poem Competition, 2001
• Winner, Poets Corner Award, for Tales for an Urban Sky, 1999.
• Shortlisted, City of Edmonton Book Prize, for Lattice of the Years, 1999, Tales for an Urban Sky, 2000 and The Office Tower Tales, 2009;  Standard candles, 2016; and Welcome to the Anthropocene, 2019.
• Shortlisted, Stephan G. Stephansson Award, Writers Guild of Alberta, for Tales for an Urban Sky, 2000; The Occupied World, 2007; and Standard Candles, 2016.
• Shortlisted, Raymond Souster Award, League of Canadian Poets, for Welcome to the Anthropocene, 2019.
• Shortlisted, Robert Kroetsch Poetry Prize, Book Publishers Association of Alberta, for Welcome to the Anthropocene, 2019
• Winner, Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Competition, for Scenes from the Sugar Bowl Cafe, 1998
• Winner, Alberta Writing for Youth Competition, for The Chinese Mirror, 1988.
• Finalist, Canadian Library Association Book of the Year, for The Chinese Mirror, 1988

Other publishing credits

Periodicals

Poems have appeared in the following periodicals:

Amethyst Review; Antigonish Review; Arc; CV2; Dandelion; Descant; Event; The Fiddlehead; Grain; Hysteria (U.S.); Kenyon Review (U.S.), Literary Review of Canada, Malahat Review; The New Quarterly; NewWest Review; Northward Journal; On Spec; Orbis (U.K.); Other Voices; People’s Poetry Letter; Poetry Canada Review; Pottersfield Portfolio; The Prairie Journal; Prism; Quarry; Queen’s Quarterly; Rattle (U.S.); Room of One’s Own; Secrets from the Orange Couch; Stand Magazine (U.K.); Wascana Review; Waves; Whetstone; Windsor Review;

Anthologies

• Poetry Alive: Perspectives (Copp Clark Pitman, 1991)
• On Spec: The first five years (Tesseract Books, 1995) – Best of the magazine’s first five years
• Vintage ’92: Prize-winning Poems from the League of Canadian Poets
• Vintage ’95: Prize-winning Poems from the League of Canadian Poets
• Vintage 97: Prize-winning Poems from the League of Canadian Poets
• Going it alone: Plays by women for solo performance (Winnipeg, Nuage Editions)
• What if? Amazing stories selected by Monica Hughes (Toronto, Tundra Books, 1998)
• The Edges of Time: A celebration of Canadian Poetry (Toronto, Seraphim Editions, 1999)
• Threshold: An Anthology of contemporary Writing from Alberta (Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2000)
• Echoes 12 (Toronto, Oxford University Press Canada, 2002)
• Reading the River: A traveller’s companion to the North Saskatchewan River (Regina, Coteau Books, 2005)
• Writing the Terrain: Travelling through Alberta with the Poets (Calgary, University of Calgary Press, 2005)
• Poetry and Spiritual Practice: Selections from Contemporary Canadian Poets (Toronto, St. Thomas Press, 2002)
• Poetry as Liturgy (Toronto, St. Thomas Press, 2007)
• Where the Light gets in: Anthology of Poetry from Canada (School of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland, 2009)
• Pith & Wry: Canadian Poetry (Sudbury, Scrivener Press, 2010)
• Writing the City: Poets Laureate of Edmonton (Edmonton, Edmonton Arts Council, 2012)
• Monkscript Two, Surprising Saints: Literature, Arts & Spirituality (Louisville, KY, Fons Vitae Press, 2012)
• Untying the Apron: Daughters remember Mothers of the 1950s (Oakville, Guernica Editions, 2013)
• Poems from Planet Earth (Saltspring Island, Leaf Press, 2013)
• A Crystal through which Light passes: Glosas for P.K. Page (Ottawa, Buschek Books, 2013)
• Falling in Love with Poetry (Waterloo, The New Quarterly, 2016)
• Ten Canadian Writers in Context (Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 2016

Articles/Essays

• “Poetry under the influence of time” published in CV2, Volume 25, Issue 1.
• “Only tenderness” in Feminism and the language of love, 1999, published by the League of Canadian Poets (Living Archives series)
• “Politics as Phase Space” published in fifty3, Winter 2004 (Published by the Latitude 53 Society of Artists)
• “The Ultraviolet Catastrophe” published in The New Quarterly (QuArc issue), 2011
• “Word Shapes and Rhymescapes: Translating Translation Symmetry into Music and Poetry” published in Math Horizons (Mathematical Association of America), February 2013.
• “Barbers & Big Ideas: Paradox in Math and Poetry” – Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 2014
• “The wide and starry sky: Falling in love with the poem” The New Quarterly, July 2015
• “Mary T. McDonald: From Nowhere, Alberta” The Dark Horse, Spring & Summer, 2018

Selected Performances/Broadcasts:

• CBC – “Alberta Anthology” (1989, 1991, 1992, 1995)
• Womenstrength Festival – Edmonton (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992)
• “Starwords” – Edmonton Space and Sciences Centre – 1990
• “Writing on the Wall” – Women’s Television Network  (Spring, 1995)
• Time Capsule project (for Edmonton’s Symphony Hall) – August, 1995
• Gala Performance, Global Arts & Culture symposium (Directed by Veronica Tennant) September, 1999
• “Exploring Language” CD prepared for Alberta Learning (English Language Arts curriculum, Grades 5-12) ISBN 0-7785-2575-9
• Edmonton International Fringe Theatre festival, 2008, performances from The Office Tower Tales

Readings

Selected readings include:

• “String Quartet with A. Major, Poet” (Part of the “Made in Canada” music festival) – November, 1992
• Edmonton First Night Festival – December, 1992
• Stroll of Poets Society, Twelfth Night of Poetry (selected by audiences) – January, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000
• Muttart Gallery  (Calgary) – February, 1993
• Prairie Festival of Books (Regina) – May, 1993
• The (Almost) Mother’s Day Cabaret (Edmonton) – May, 1993
• Studio Cafe (Calgary) – October, 1993
• Fellowship of Australian Writers (Sydney) – December, 1993
• Writers Centre of New South Wales (address to the annual general meeting) – February, 1995.
• The Poets Union (Sydney) – March, 1995
• Poetry Night in Canada (Edmonton) – June, 1995
• Alberta Book Fair – August, 1996
• University of Leeds – November 1996
• Hawthorne Society Reading Series (Victoria) – October 1997
• Alberta Book Fair (Edmonton) – October, 1997
• McMaster University (Hamilton) – May, 1998
• Mocambo Reading Series (Victoria) – September 1998
• Word on the Street Book Fair (Calgary) – September 1999, 2000 and 2001
• Art Bar Reading Series (Toronto) – November, 1999, April 2001, November 2003
• The Idler Pub (Toronto) – November, 2001
• Varuna Writers Centre (Katoomba, New South Wales) – March, 2002
• New South Wales Writers Centre Autumn Festival – March, 2002
• CBC Poetry Face-off (Edmonton finals) – March, 2004
• Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference – June, 2004
• Poet Laureate readings (June, 2005-7) – more than four dozen appearances in schools, libraries and public venues, including: City Hall performance for the Governor General’s visit; Mayor’s Evening for the Arts (Winspear Centre); address to Edmonton Arts Council AGM; Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon.
• Poetry in the Crypt series, (London, U.K, with Mimi Khalvati.) – June, 2008
• Enbridge “Famous Five” luncheon speaker – March, 2010
• Poetry in the Crypt series, (London, U.K, with Mimi Khalvati.) – June, 2008
• Festival International de la Poesie, Trois Rivieres, Quebec – October, 2011
• Presenter, Mathematics: Muse, Maker & Measure of the Arts – Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery, 2011
• Bridges: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture – Enschede, the Netherlands, July 2013
• Canadian Literature Centre, University of Alberta – March, 2013
• Stony Brook University (Provost’s Lecture titled “A superposition of brains”) – September, 2013
• Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference, Los Angeles, April, 2016
• Government House, Regina, April 2016
• Bridges Conference, Waterloo, July, 2017 (Plenary speaker, “Numbers with Personality”)

Current Memberships:

• The League of Canadian Poets
• Writers Guild of Alberta
• Edmonton Arts Council

Volunteer Contributions

Edmonton Poetry Festival

• Founder, 2006
• Chair, 2006 to 2020

League of Canadian Poets

(The League’s mission statement is: To develop the art of poetry; to enhance the status of poets and nurture a diverse professional poetic community; to facilitate the teaching of Canadian poetry at all levels of education; to enlarge the audience for poetry by encouraging publication, performance and recognition of Canadian poetry nationally and internationally.)

• Alberta representative, 1997-99
• Vice-president & membership chair, 1999-2000
• President, 2000-02
• Past president (2002-05)

Writers Guild of Alberta

• Retreats committee, 1992
• Vice-president, 1993-94
• President, 1994-95

Edmonton Arts Council

• Board member 1996
• Chair, arts peer review jury 1998-99 and 1999-2000;
• Chair, 1999-2000

City of Edmonton

• Member, peer review jury to award municipal grants-in-aid, 1995-6
• Member, Honour Awards Selection committee (arts & culture subcommittee) 2002-4

The Books Collective

• Founding member of Edmonton publishing collective 1991-96

Education

• BA. (English, history) – Trinity College, University of Toronto

Other

• Writer-in-residence, Grant McEwen Community College, 1998
• Canada Council for the Arts Senior Writer’s Grant, 2007 & 2013
• ATCO Gas Lifetime Achievement Award (awarded during the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts), 2010
• Inductee, City of Edmonton Arts & Culture Hall of Fame, 2012
• Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, 2012
• Writers Guild of Alberta, Golden Pen Award, 2014
• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award, 2017
• Global TV Woman of Vision, 2018
• Delivery of Anne Szumigalski Lecture, 2018
• Honorary Doctorate of Letters, University of Alberta, 2019