Christopher Canniff

Christopher Canniff

CHRISTOPHER CANNIFF grew up in Windsor, Ontario. Shortly after completing a Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Toronto, he moved to Ecuador for a year, where he read over fifty books of world literature, learned a new language and culture, and taught for WorldTeach, a non-profit and non-governmental organization based at the Harvard Institute for International Development. He lived with an Ecuadorian family in Portoviejo and took culture, language and history classes about the country while working with Plan International, an organization tasked with improving Ecuador’s faltering rural education system. Christopher has travelled throughout Ecuador, Peru, Columbia, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, England and Mexico; as well, he has visited Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, Oslo, and Tallin; places that have fuelled his writing. Christopher is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers in Toronto, studying under the mentorship of M.G. Vassanji and David Adams Richards, both of whom are Giller Prize and Canadian Governor General Award winners.

Christopher has written travel articles for WorldTeach, and his first literary short story publication, Solitude, was published by Tightrope Books in 2006. He won the “3 Hour Novel Contest” with LWOT (Lies With Occasional Truth) Magazine in Montreal in 2007, for Clean Conscience. In 2008, he was commissioned to write two scripts for Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, a nationally-syndicated radio program produced by Falcon Picture Group in Chicago. Christopher was shortlisted in the 2010 Matrix Litpop Awards for Fiction, for Songs and Letters of Lost LoveThe Russian Soldier, an excerpt from a previous version of Poor Man’s Galapagos, was published in Descant Magazine in Spring 2011.  Christopher’s first full-length work,  Abundance of the Infinite (Quattro Books, 2012), a psychological novella set in Ecuador and Toronto, was shortlisted for the 2012 Ken Klonsky Novella Award.

Christopher was the president of the Canadian Authors Association Toronto Branch for the 2014-2015 season (www.canauthorstoronto.org). He has maintained an active literary life and believes that literary communities are essential for any writer.  He is married to Roxanne, and lives with their son, Colin. and daughter, Abigail, in Windsor, Ontario. More details on Christopher’s work can be found at:  www.christophercanniff.com.