Johanna Skibsrud was born in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1980. She completed her BA in English Literature from the University of Toronto, her MA in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal, and is currently completing her PhD in English Literature at the Université de Montréal, with a focus on the poetry of Wallace Stevens. She has held a variety of different jobs in the meantime, including working with youth at risk in the Canadian arctic, as a wilderness instructor in Florida and Maine, teaching ESL in Asia, and as a sales associate for Canadian Scholars’ Press and Women’s Press in Toronto. Her first book of poetry, Late Nights With Wild Cowboys, was published by Gaspereau Press of Kentville, Nova Scotia in 2008 and shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award for the best first book of poetry by a Canadian poet. A second book of poetry, I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being, was published in April, 2010, also by Gaspereau Press. Her debut novel, The Sentimentalists, was awarded the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The novel is based, in part, on the true story of her own father’s experiences during the Vietnam War—specifically his involvement in a controversial Operation, which resulted in civilian casualties. Johanna currently lives between Paris and Montreal.