Pilling, Marilyn Gear
Biography
Marilyn Gear Pilling began writing in midlife. Her poetry, short stories and essays have been published in most of Canada's literary magazines, broadcast on CBC radio, and have won many national awards. Her stories were featured in Oberon’s Coming Attractions series in 1995, and a collection of short stories, My Nose Is A Gherkin Pickle Gone Wrong was published by Cormorant Books in 1996. A second collection of short stories was published in April 2002, The Roseate Spoonbill of Happiness, and was shortlisted for the $10,000 Writer’s Trust Award. Her first book of poetry, The Field Next To Love , came out in the fall of 2002 from Black Moss Press, and since then Black Moss has published three more of her collections of poetry: The Life of the Four Stomachs ( 2006), Cleavage: a life in breasts (2007) and The Bones of the World Begin to Show (2009). She was for many years the Head of the Arts Departments at Hamilton’s Central Library, and currently is a full-time writer and a teacher of writing. She is the President of the Hamilton Poetry Centre and a member of the Writer’s Union of Canada and the League of Canadian Poets. Pilling has a Bachelors degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Toronto and a Masters of Library and Information Science, also from the University of Toronto. She lives in Hamilton and grew up in Waterloo, Ontario, but her roots are in Huron County. She has read her fiction and poetry at venues across Canada, including Harbourfront in Toronto, the Eden Mills Writers Festival, the Stephen Leacock Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Windsor Bookfest. She has read her work abroad, including at the fabled “Shakespeare & Company” in Paris, France.
Of her writing she says: The last two sentences of my story "Tib" are metaphor for my writing life. "Goosey and her new daddy are breathing in tandem, daddy's rich round purr ebbing and flowing like the nearby ocean. Tib curls like a fetus at the end of the mattress and through the night on their small barque, these three drift across the vast midnight-blue underside of the world." That vast midnight-blue underside is what is underneath all my activities in the outer world, and all the time I am dealing with things in the outer world, I know that the inner world is there, getting ready to give me the next story or poem. In the outer world, certain things have manna for me – an incident, a conversation, a paragraph in a book, the light on a certain afternoon – it can be anything. Whenever I feel that tug, that little charge, I pay attention to it and record it in my writing notebook and from there it goes into the vast midnight-blue underside. When later it comes out in the form of sentences like the above, that is when eternity touches time for me. In writing, I have discovered my own true love who will never desert me and will keep me warm until I'm food for worms. Who ever would have dreamed that life would hold such a thing? Certainly not me!
Awards & Recognitions
Finalist in the CBC Literary Competition (essay/memoir category 1991)
Finalist (four times - 1990, 1992, 1993, 2008) in Event's Creative Non-Fiction contest
Honourable Mention in The Pottersfield Portfolio's 1993 "Archeology" contest
Shortlisted for Prairie Fire's "Hot Shorts: Erotica Without Exploitation" contest (winter 1994)
Winner (spring 93) of the Okanagan Award for Short Fiction
Shortlisted for The Fiddlehead's "Food for Thought" contest (winter 94) and their Anniversary" contest (1995)
Honourable Mention in Prism International's 1993/94 Short Fiction contest
Shortlisted for Eden Mills 1994 Literary Contest
Shortlisted for Dandelion's 1995 Short Frictions Contest
Honourable Mention in Newest's 1995 Late Bloomer's contest
First Place of The Harpweaver's 1997 Eleanor Abrams Prize for fiction
Winner of Carousel's 1997 Short Story Contest
Winner of Prairie Fire's 1998 Postcard Fiction contest
Second Place Winner in Prairie Fire's Creative Non Fiction Contest, 1998
Runner-up in the League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Contest, 1998 and 1999
Runner Up in the League of Canadian Poets Canadian Poetry Chapbook Manuscript Competition, 1999
Third Place Winner in national contest for Exotic Erotica, 1999, judged by Susan Musgrave
Finalist in Prism International's Short Fiction contest, 1999
Honourable Mention for the Acorn-Rukeyser Chapbook Award, 2000
Finalist in Western Magazine Awards, 2000
Finalist in Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook contest – 2000
Runner up in The Ray Burrell poetry contest – 2000
Shortlist short fiction, The Roseate Spoonbill of Happiness, for 2002 Upper Canada Writers’ Craft Award
Honourable Mention for poetry in Room of One’s Own poetry contest, 2003.
Third Prize for poetry in the Sandburg-Livesay Anthology Contest 2000.
Finalist in Arc’s Poem of the Year contest – 2003
Honourable Mention in Room of One’s Own Poetry contest - 2003
Third Place in Prairie Fire’s 2005 Creative Non Fiction Contest
Editor’s Choice in Arc’s 2007 Poem of the Year contest
Finalist in Descant’s Best Canadian Poem, 2006
Finalist in Event’s Creative Non Fiction contest, 2008
2nd & 3rd Prize Ontario Poetry Society spring contest 2008
Longlisted for the 2008 ReLit Award for best book of poetry
First Place, Descant’s Winston Collins award for Best Canadian Poem, 2009
Second Place, Grain’s Short Story Contest, 2009.
1995 Hamilton and Region Arts Council award for best published poem 1994
1996 Hamilton and Region Arts Council award for best published short story 1994
1997 HARAC award for best published poem 1996
1997 HARAC award for best fiction book 1996
1997 HARAC award for best published poem 1996
1998 HARAC award for best published short story - 1998
1999 HARAC award for best published short story - 1999
2002 HARAC award for best fiction book - 2002
2002 HARAC award for best published poem – 2002
2003 HARAC award for best published poem – 2003
2004 HARAC award for best published poem – 2004
2006 HARAC award for best book of poetry - 2006
Other Information
Related Websites or Blogs
Marilyn Gear Pilling at www.writersunion.ca
Marilyn Gear Pilling at www.poets.ca
Published Work
2009. The Bones of the World Begin to Show. Windsor: Black Moss. (Poetry)
2007. Cleavage: A Life in Breasts. Windsor: Black Moss Press. (Poetry)
2006. The Life of the Four Stomachs. Windsor: Black Moss Press. (Poetry)
2002. The Roseate Spoonbill of Happiness. Maple, Ont.: Boheme Press.(Fiction)
2002. The Field Next to Love. Windsor: Black Moss Press. (Poetry)
1996. My Nose is a Gherkin Pickle Gone Wrong. Dunvegan, Ont.: Cormorant Books. (Fiction)
