Wiki: Ann-Marie MacDonald

Ann-Marie MacDonald (born October 29, 1958) is a Canadians playwright, author, actress, and Broadcasting host who lives in Toronto.

Life and career

MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada's military; she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany. She is of partial Lebanese people descent through her mother.Helen Chryssides, "Prose, plays and the joy of creating", The Canberra Times, April 9, 2000, p. 20

MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees (1996), which was selected for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club in January 2002.

MacDonald received the Governor General's Award for Drama, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, and the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award for her play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

MacDonald hosted the CBC Television documentary series Life and Times for seven seasons. MacDonald also hosted CBC's flagship documentary program, Doc Zone for eight seasons.

She appeared in the films I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others.

MacDonald's 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case. Her third novel Adult Onset was released in 2014 and has been translated into five languages. Her fourth novel Fayne was published in 2022.

She was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University, and she coaches students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School of Canada.

In 2008, MacDonald was awarded an Honorary degree of humanities by the University of Windsor.

In May 2015, MacDonald was the "big-name author" and "public face" of the inaugural Canadian Authors for Indies Day, organized to bring attention to independent bookstores across the country. Nearly 100 stores and 270 authors participated in the nationwide event.

In December 2018, MacDonald was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of "her multi-faceted contributions to the arts in Canada and for her advocacy of LGBT and women's rights".

In 2019, MacDonald was diagnosed with Serostatus rheumatoid arthritis, which affected every aspect of her life, including work. She finished her novel Fayne while strapped to a chair in order to be able to type. Her illness caused the novel's completion to be delayed by a year. As of 2023, she is symptom-free.

MacDonald is married to the Canadian playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer.

Works

Theatre

This is For You, Anna - 1983 (play, collective creation)
Nancy Drew, The Case of the Missing Mother - 1984 (play, co-authored with Beverley Cooper)
Clue in the Fast Lane - 1985 (play, co-authored with Beverley Cooper)
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) – 1988 (play)
The Arab's Mouth – 1990 (play)
Nigredo Hotel – 1992 (opera libretto)
The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls – 1995 (play, co-authored with Jennifer Brewin, Martha Ross, Leah Cherniak, and Alisa Palmer)
Anything That Moves – 2000 (book and lyrics for musical)
Belle Moral – 2005 (play; a substantially revised version of The Arab's Mouth (above))