Welcome to the Women Writing podcast. In this episode, I’m taking a coffee break with author Merilyn Simonds.

Merilyn Simonds is the internationally published author of 22 books, including the novel The Holding, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the Canadian classic nonfiction novel, The Convict Lover, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Among her best-selling nonfiction is A New Leaf, the story of her gardens north of Kingston, and Gutenberg’s Fingerprint, a meditation on reading, writing, and the future of the printed book. Her recent book, Woman, Watching, which won the Foreword Indies Editor’s Choice Nonfiction Award for 2022, is an innovative memoir/biography of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, an extraordinary recluse who changed the way we see birds. Simonds’ memoir, Walking with Beth: Conversations with my 100-Year-Old Friend is forthcoming from Random House Canada in September, 2025.

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