"Before The Flood was born at UBC and exists only because of their wise three-genre requirement. I went there purely for poetry, wrote a few sci-fi trifles for their fiction requirement; then, since I wanted nothing to do with drama, scratched my head for days over the "creative non-fiction" genre. Finally, given that I went to high school in this weird little New Brunswick town just prior to its semi-destruction with the construction of a hydroelectric dam, I decided to try my hand at an adolescent autobiographyical memoir sort of thing, hoping it would be entertaing enough to get me through the course. Well, it went over well in the workshop (and went on to become one of the chapters in Before The Flood), so I tried another one, which also went over well. And before you could say "thesis", I grabbed Keith Maillard as my mentor/advisor who informed me that the sooner I faced the fact I was writing a novel, the better. At this very moment, somewhere in the Creative Writing Department library at UBC, is a thesis with the dumb title of Gods In The River, which is actually the first draft of Before The Flood." -- Alan R. Wilson
PLACE OF BIRTH: Moncton, New Brunswick
CITY OF RESIDENCE: Victoria, British Columbia
LITERARY AWARDS RECEIVED:
2000 Books in Canada/Chapters First Novel Award for Before the Flood
LITERARY AWARD NOMINATIONS:
Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction for Before the Flood
Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for Before the Flood
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Before the Flood, novel, Cormorant, 1999
Counting to 100, poetry, Wolsak & Wynn, 1996
Animate Objects, poetry, Turnstone, 1995
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS:
Alan R. Wilson has an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of New Brunswick, and a graduate degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. He has had several jobs, the most memorable as a fire hydrant painter, an experience immortalized in the CBC television drama "106 Fire Hydrants". For reasons best known to himself, he once wrote a set of 100 poems about the numbers from 1 to 100 that became his second book, Counting to 100. He is currently working on Lucifer's Hair, the second in a quartet of novels that began with Before the Flood, and which will all be set in the same Maritime town.
PLACE OF BIRTH: Moncton, New Brunswick
CITY OF RESIDENCE: Victoria, British Columbia
LITERARY AWARDS RECEIVED:
2000 Books in Canada/Chapters First Novel Award for Before the Flood
LITERARY AWARD NOMINATIONS:
Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction for Before the Flood
Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for Before the Flood
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Before the Flood, novel, Cormorant, 1999
Counting to 100, poetry, Wolsak & Wynn, 1996
Animate Objects, poetry, Turnstone, 1995
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS:
Alan R. Wilson has an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of New Brunswick, and a graduate degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. He has had several jobs, the most memorable as a fire hydrant painter, an experience immortalized in the CBC television drama "106 Fire Hydrants". For reasons best known to himself, he once wrote a set of 100 poems about the numbers from 1 to 100 that became his second book, Counting to 100. He is currently working on Lucifer's Hair, the second in a quartet of novels that began with Before the Flood, and which will all be set in the same Maritime town.
Articles: 5 Articles for this author
Before the Flood (Cormorant)
Info
With some help from mentor/advisor Keith Maillard, Alan R. Wilson's Before the Flood grew from a UBC Creative Writing thesis called Gods in the River. It shared the Chapters/Books In Canada First Novel Award after being short-listed for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Leacock Medal.
"No one can predict what will happen when three judges and six novels get tossed into the same bed,"; says Wilson. "I was thrilled when the dice came out right for me on the third toss."; Cormorant has released a new, second edition.
[BCBW SPRING 2001]
Before The Flood (Cormorant)
Info
Alan R. Wilson of Victoria is a co-recipient of the Books In Canada/Chapters First Novel Award for Before The Flood (Cormorant). His coming-of-age story was also a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Stephen Leacock Humour Medal.
[BCBW WINTER 2000]
Before the Flood (Cormorant $21.95)
Info
In Alan R. Wilson's first novel, Before the Flood (Cormorant $21.95), Samuel MacFarlane is launched into adolescence in Woodstock, New Brunswick as the construction of a dam threatens the town. A chapter will serve as the basis for a series of half-hour dramas on CBC. A Victoria teacher, Wilson is working on the second of his projected MacFarlane series.
[BCBW SUMMER 1999]
Before The Flood
Info
The last-but-not-least novel that made the B.C. Book Prize's short list is Before The Flood by Alan R. Wilson. Let me quote Keith Maillard from its back cover. "He tells us once again that old story about a boy growing up in a small town and makes every bit of it sparklingly new."; Authors who have tried this feat approach a new growing-up book with a great fear that it might out-do us all. Damn you, Wilson, I believe you're one of the good ones.
[Robert Harlow / BCBW 2000]
Before the Flood (Cormorant $21.95)
Info
In Alan R. Wilson's first novel, Before the Flood (Cormorant $21.95), Samuel MacFarlane is launched into adolescence in Woodstock, New Brunswick as the construction of a dam threatens the town. A chapter will serve as the basis for a series of half-hour dramas on CBC. A Victoria teacher, Wilson is working on the second of his projected MacFarlane series. 1-896951-12-0
[BCBW AUTUMN 1999]