Rita Moir lives in the Slocan Valley of BC where she worked for decades as a freelance journalist for the Globe and Mail, CBC Radio and regional publications. CBC also produced and broadcast several of her plays for a national audience. She is the award-winning author of the short story Leave Taking, about preparing a body for burial (event non-fiction winner, Norton Reader, Best Canadians Essays); Survival Gear (Polestar, 1994), shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction; Buffalo Jump: A Woman’s Travels (Coteau, 1999, Winner of the Hubert Evans Award for Non-Fiction and the VanCity Book Prize); The Windshift Line (Greystone, 2005, shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Award); and The Third Crop: A personal and historical journey into the photo albums and shoe boxes of the Slocan Valley, 1800s to early 1940s (Sono Nis, 2011, Honourable Mention in the Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing). Her work appears in anthologies such as Nobody’s Mother (TouchWood); Going Some Place (Coteau); Sleds, Sleighs and Snow (Whitecap); 75 Readings Plus (McGraw-Hill Ryerson), Genius of Place (Polestar), and magazines such as Borealis. She has served as juror for numerous literary competitions, and recently edited several books, including Lee Reid’s Growing Home: the Legacy of Kootenay Elders and Growing Together: Conversations with Seniors and Youth.
