Alison Pick

Alison Pick (born 1975) is a Canadian writer. She is most noted for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Far to Go, and was a winner of the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for most promising writer in Canada under 35. Life and career Alison Pick is the author of three novels (The Sweet Edge, Far to Go, and Strangers With the Same Dream), two poetry collections and one memoir (Between Gods). She was born in Toronto, Ontario and grew up in Kitchener. In 1999, she graduated from the University of Guelph with a B.A. in psychology. Pick received her MA in philosophy from Memorial University in Newfoundland. During her teenage years, Pick discovered that her father's Czech family was originally Jewish although he had been raised a Christian. Pick herself later converted to Judaism. Pick's novel Far to Go won the Canadian Jewish Book Award and was nominated for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. The novel has been optioned for film by House of Films, with a screenplay written by Hannah Moscovitch and Rosa Laborde. Pick is the author of Between Gods, a memoir about depression, family secrets, and forging a new identity from the ashes of the past. It won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Memoir, and was shortlisted for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and for the Wingate Prize in the UK. Between Gods was also a Top Book of 2014 at the CBC and The Globe and Mail.