Leona Gom was born in 1946 in the Peace River country of northern Alberta. She lived for twenty years on an isolated farm in northern Alberta, where her parents homesteaded. She received a B.Ed. and M.A., both with honours, from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and taught there in the Dept. of English for two years. She then taught English and Creative Writing at Douglas/Kwantlen College in B.C., where she was editor and poetry editor for ten years of the literary magazine Event; she has also taught graduate and undergraduate creative writing courses at U.B.C. She was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta in 1987-88, at the University of Lethbridge in 1989, and at the University of Winnipeg in 1990. She now lives and writes fulltime in White Rock, B.C. She has been published in journals and anthologies in Canada, the U.S., England, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Australia and New Zealand, and she has given many readings, lectures and workshops on writing. She has also had two full-length radio plays, The Inheritance and Sour Air, produced by CBC. In 1980 her book Land of the Peace won the CAA Award for best book of poetry of the year and was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Award. In 1986 her novel Housebroken was awarded the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction. Her detective heroine Vicky Bauer is of mixed Indian and White heritage, fiercely independent and a graduate student in film studies. In After-Image, she is also the far from perfect wife of a school teacher working on a Canadian Armed Forces base in Europe. When she sees a murder committed by a man in uniform, nobody will believe her story, partially because she has had a drinking problem. As the sole witness amid suspects that include her husband, Vicky Bauer realizes she might be the next murder victim.

Leona Gom's 14th title about a "semi-functional marriage" and fierce competition among scientists, The Exclusion Principle (Sumach Press $18.95), is a novel about astronomy and astronomers, set in B.C. at on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. 978-1-894549-79-0

BOOKS:

Poetry:

Kindling (Fiddlehead Press, 1972)
The Singletree (Sono Nis Press, 1975)
Land of the Peace (Thistledown Press, 1980)
NorthBound (Thistledown Press, 1984)
Private Properties (Sono Nis Press, 1986)
The Collected Poems (Sono Nis Press, 1991)

Novels:

Housebroken (NeWest Press, 1986)(Paperjacks, 1989)

Zero Avenue (Douglas & McIntyre, 1989)(in Europe: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1991 and Fischer Paperbacks, 1994)

The Y Chromosome (Sumach/Second Story Press, 1990)(Alire Press, Quebec, 2000)

After-Image (Sumach/Second Story Press, 1996) (in U.S.: St. MartinÕs Press, 1996)(in Germany: Fischer Paperbacks, 2000)

Double Negative (Sumach/Second Story Press, 1998)(in Germany: Fischer Paperbacks, 2001)

Freeze Frame (Sumach/Second Story Press, 1999) (in Germany: Fischer Paperbacks, 2002)

Hating Gladys (Sumach Press, 2002)

The Exclusion Principle (Sumach Press, 2009)

[BCBW 2009] "Fiction" "Mystery"