Karen Solie

Karen Solie (born 1966) is a Canadian poet.

Born in Moose Jaw, Solie grew up on the family farm in southwest Saskatchewan. Over the years, she has worked as a farm hand, an espresso jerk, a groundskeeper, a newspaper reporter/photographer, an academic research assistant, and an English teacher. She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.

Karen Solie's poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous North American journals, including Geist, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Event, Indiana Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Other Voices, and The Capilano Review. She has also had her poetry published in the anthologies Breathing Fire (1995), Hammer and Tongs (1999), and Introductions: Poets Present Poets (2001). One of her short stories was featured in The Journey Prize Anthology 12 (2000). Solie's poem "Prayers for the Sick" won second place in Arc Poetry Magazine's 2008 Poem of the Year Contest.

Solie was one of the judges for the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize, judged the 2012 Walrus Poetry Prize, and was a judge for the Poetry in Voice Canadian high school poetry recitation competition. In 2014, she was named as a trustee to the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.

Her collection The Road in Is Not the Same Road Out was published in 2015.[1]

In 2015, she won the Latner Griffin Writers' Trust Poetry Prize.[2]

Her poetry collection, Wellwater, released in 2025, was the joint winner of the 2025 Forward Prize for Best Collection.[3] It was also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize[4] and the PEN Heaney Prize,[5] and won the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry at the 2025 Governor General's Awards.[6]

Awards

Bibliography

  • Short Haul Engine (2001)
  • Modern and Normal (2005)
  • Pigeon (2009)
  • The Living Option (2013)
  • The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out (2015)
  • The Caiplie Caves (2019)[7]
  • A Sharing Economy, Granta #141: Special Canada, 2017, pp 114 – 115
  • Wellwater (2025)

References

  1. ^ "The 50 most anticipated books of 2015 (the first half, anyway)". The Globe and Mail, January 2, 2015.
  2. ^ "André Alexis wins Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize". The Globe and Mail, November 3, 2015.
  3. ^ Loffhagen, Emma (2025-10-26). "Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners". The Guardian. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
  4. ^ "2025 – T. S. Eliot Prize". T. S. Eliot Prize. Retrieved 2025-10-07.
  5. ^ Spanoudi, Melina (2025-10-23). "Six titles shortlisted for PEN Heaney Prize 2025". The Bookseller. Retrieved 2025-10-29.
  6. ^ Nicole Thompson, "Kyle Edwards wins Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction". Toronto Star, November 6, 2025.
  7. ^ "20 works of Canadian poetry to check out in spring 2019". CBC Books, January 25, 2019.
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