Baxter, Jean Rae
Biography
Jean Rae Baxter holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Toronto and a B.Ed degree from Queen’s. She worked in radio before beginning her career as a secondary school English teacher in Lennox & Addington County, twenty miles west of Kingston. During this time she helped to develop curriculum in liaison with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
During her career in education, Baxter had little free time for her own writing, although she managed to produce a few poems, professional articles, and one-act plays that have been produced in schools and churches.
In 1996, when she returned from the Kingston area to her hometown, Hamilton, Baxter began to write in earnest. An interest in history had already led her into researching Canada’s past. Now she began to write about it, starting with the short story, “Farewell the Mohawk Valley,” which Ronsdale Press included in its anthology, Beginnings: Stories of Canada’s Past (2001). In 2005, she represented Ronsdale Press in Toronto at the Golden Oak Awards, for which Beginnings was shortlisted.
Baxter surprised herself by the discovery that she had a knack for the noir. The first short story she ever wrote, “The Quilt”, received first prize in the Canadian Writer’s Journal’s 2000 Competition. “Mother Wore a Hat” appeared in Lichen Literary Journal and “Depression Glass” in Other Voices. Insomniac Press published “Loss” in its anthology Hard Boiled Love (2003) and “A Wanton Disregard” in Revenge (2004), “The Catnappers” and “O Little Town” appeared in the Hamilton literary journal, Hammered Out. In 2003 and 2004 Baxter received the Arts Hamilton Award for the best story by a Hamilton writer. She has twice been shortlisted for the Canadian Authors’ Association Conference Contest. Seraphim Editions published her critically acclaimed collection of short stories, A Twist of Malice, in 2005.
She has read at venues in Hamilton, Burlington, Dundas, Toronto, Windsor, Cambridge, Kitchener, Port Hope, Cobourg, Kingston, Napanee, Wellington, Belleville and Trenton as well as at Hamilton’s Festival of Friends, Hamilton’s Grit Lit Festival, at the Eden Mills “Fringe” Festival and at Canadian “ex pat” gatherings in China and Romania.
Her young adult historical novel, The Way Lies North, was published by Ronsdale Press in 2007. For her second novel, which was released in April, 2008, she returned to crime. Her literary murder mystery, Looking for Cardenio, centres upon the discovery of an old manuscript that may be Shakespeare’s lost play.
As a member of Arts Hamilton’s Literary Advisory Committee and as one of the organizers of the LiT LiVe Reading Series, she is an active member of Hamilton’s writing community.
(From: http://www.jeanraebaxter.ca/)
Other InformationRelated Websites and Blogs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rae_Baxter
Published Work
2008. Looking for Cardenio. Hamilton, Ont. : Seraphim Editions (Fiction)
2007. The way lies north. Vancouver : Ronsdale Press (Children's)
2005. A twist of malice. Hamilton, Ont. : Seraphim Editions (Fiction)
