Jacqueline Jill Robinson (born June 16, 1955) is a Canadian writer and editor. She is the author of a novel and four collections of short stories. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals including Geist, the Antigonish Review, Event, Prairie Fire and the Windsor Review. Her novel, More In Anger, published in 2012, tells the stories of three generations of mothers and daughters who bear the emotional scars of loveless marriages, corrosive anger and misogyny.Volmers, Eric. "J. Jill Robinson explores dark inheritances in new novel: More in Anger," Calgary Herald, June 1, 2012.
Robinson has won numerous literary competitions including two Western Magazine Awards, two Saskatchewan Book Awards, two prizes for creative nonfiction from Event magazine, the PRISM international fiction contest and the Howard O'Hagan award for short fiction from the Writers' Guild of Alberta. Her novel and stories have also won critical acclaim for their vivid characters, spare writing and tragic themes that nevertheless convey humour and hope.Clemence, Verne. "Happy endings can't be guaranteed," The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon), October 25, 2003, p. E13.
Robinson was appointed writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library for 2020–2021. She was the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library during 2004–2005. From 1995 to 1999, she was editor of the literary magazine Grain, published quarterly by the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. She has taught English literature and creative writing at the Universities of Calgary and Saskatchewan, at St. Peter's College in Muenster, Saskatchewan and at the First Nations University of Canada.
Robinson was married to the poet Steven Ross Smith (1999 to 2022) and is the mother of a son, Emmett H Robinson Smith, born in 1995. She lives on Galiano Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Making of a writer
J. Jill Robinson was born in Langley, British Columbia in 1955, but she also had family ties to Alberta. Her mother grew up in Calgary while her father, a doctor, was from Banff. In 1979, she moved to Calgary where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and English literature as well as a Master's degree in 19th century American literature at the University of Calgary. Her Master's thesis was entitled, The circumferential vision: love and death in the poetry of Emily Dickinson.McGoogan, Ken. "NON-FICTION BOUNDARIES BLUR," Calgary Herald, April 3, 1993, p. D13.
In 1987, while attending the Banff Centre for the Arts, where she encountered writers from across the country, Robinson realized that she wanted to be a writer herself. From 1988 to 1991, she studied creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, with among others, Frank Soos and Peggy Shumaker, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree. "I was the only Canadian in a graduate program with just 12 students in it...and it was great," she told a reporter in 2004. She added that the program provided her with "a toolbox of skills and techniques" while giving her a chance to read a wide variety of American writers.Paulson, Joanne. "Robinson natural writer," The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon), October 20, 2004, p. D1.
Short story collections
Saltwater Trees
Robinson earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alaska in 1990. Her MFA thesis consisted of writings that later became the basis for Saltwater Trees, her first collection of short stories published in 1991 when she was 36. The Writers' Guild of Alberta awarded Saltwater Trees its Howard O'Hagan prize for short fiction."Library Arts Writer In Residence named," The Saskatoon Sun, p. 7. Reviewer Mary Walters Riskin noted the book was a fine beginning to Robinson's career. "One of the most refreshing aspects of this collection is that so many of the 13 stories in Saltwater Trees rise out of the insanities, the batterings and the drudgeries of real life to end on notes of hope," Riskin wrote.Riskin, Mary Walters. "Alberta writer's off to good start with first book," Calgary Herald, October 5, 1991, p. E5.
Lovely In Her Bones I am always alone. Always thinking. In, and in, and in unto myself. I tell you, the world is the inside of my head. – From Lovely In Her Bones by J. Jill Robinson.Robinson, J. Jill. (1993) Lovely In Her Bones. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, p. 11.
In 1993, J. Jill Robinson published Lovely In Her Bones, a collection of 11 stories including "Finding Linette," co-winner of Event magazine's 1992 prize for creative nonfiction. Calgary journalist and author Ken McGoogan, who interviewed Robinson about the new book, described "Finding Linette" as a "technically sophisticated" story that "intercuts the straight-ahead tale of a family's Christmas gathering with memories—and conflicting versions—of the long-ago death of a child." Robinson warned, however, that although the story was based on "family mythology" and other stories in the book came from her own experience, they should not be read too literally. "People are using a more liberal definition of nonfiction," she said. "There's a lot more freedom of structure and angle. A lot more room for imagination."
Lovely In Her Bones received favourable reviews. The Globe and Mail critic John Doyle wrote that the stories were ones of "quiet self absorption" adding: "Fortunately, they are written in a clear, lucid prose and often attain a rhythm that saves them from static solipsism." He summed up the collection as "a mosaic of sharply observed events and incidents" calling it the "best type of short story collection" and adding: "At the close of the collection the mosaic has taken shape and stands as a radiant insight into the power of painful memories."Doyle, John. "BOOKS IN BRIEF: LOVELY IN HER BONES," The Globe and Mail, May 8, 1993, p. C19. The Globe's book editors listed Lovely In Her Bones as "among the books we couldn't put down in 1993."The Globe and Mail, January 1, 1994, p. C15.
In the Edmonton Journal, reviewer Valerie Compton pointed to Robinson's passage that begins, "I am always alone. Always thinking..." as evidence of both the strengths and weaknesses of Lovely In Her Bones. She called the stories "so pared down, so reduced to wistful contemplation that it is almost enervating. Almost, but not quite, because these stories depend for their effects on insights we might not achieve without spending a good long time inside a character's head."Compton, Valerie. "Short story collection filled with contemplation," Edmonton Journal, May 1, 1994, p. D7.
Eggplant Wife
J. Jill Robinson moved from Calgary to Saskatoon in 1993 to join the writer, Steven Ross Smith whom she would later marry. In 1995, she published Eggplant Wife, a novella and short stories. The collection was shortlisted for the 1996 Saskatchewan Book Award. A review in the Edmonton Journal noted Robinson's "flair for domestic drama and detail. The plotting is almost incidental to the emotional states of the characters." The novella tells the story of a young couple who leave Vancouver to move into his parents' prairie farmhouse. Mitch had paid for his parents' trip to Hawaii where they were swept away by a wave. The eggplant of the title refers to a bowl of ceramic fruits and vegetables in the farmhouse kitchen.Fertile, Candace. "Eggplant Wife plumbs abyss of feelings," Edmonton Journal, January 21, 1996, p. E4.
In 1995, Robinson gave birth to her son Emmett. During her years in Saskatchewan, she also taught creative writing at St. Peter's College in Muenster as well as at the First Nations University of Canada.
Robinson served for four years, from 1995 to 1999, as editor of the quarterly literary magazine Grain: the journal of eclectic writing dividing her time between her own writing in the mornings and editing in the afternoons.Mandel, Charles. "Worth their weight in books; Novice authors need editing by fine writers, but what's in it for the veterans, who should be writing?" Edmonton Journal, June 29, 1997, p. C6.
Residual Desire
In 2003, Robinson published Residual Desire, her fourth collection of short stories. The book captured two Saskatchewan Book Awards and earned praise from critics such as Verne Clemence. "The stories in this excellent collection are character-driven," he wrote. "The prose is spare and well crafted. The stories are edgy as befits the dark themes that drive them, but there is hope too, and more than one rueful laugh at those delightful foibles that mark us all as human."
A review in ForeWord magazine noted that Residual Desire is an "unsentimental examination" of women's lives. "Robinson's stories are dramatic and heart wrenching, but, impressively, there's nothing heavy-handed or unbelievable in her delivery," the review added. "Her characters probe the most vulnerable underbellies of their lives—lost loves, aging fathers, jealous sisterhoods—and push the reader to do the same."
I am generally a fan of sparely written prose; a character's suffering can be laid so bare the reader winces because she can't shy away. – From a book review by J. Jill Robinson.Robinson, J. Jill. "Too dire for words," The Globe and Mail, May 29, 2004, p. D7.
During an interview about Residual Desire, Robinson agreed that her work could be described as unsentimental and heart wrenching. "One of the things that gets me writing is sadness," she said. "When you're happy and joyful, you don't need so much to pick up a pen to try to fathom or understand life...If a story of mine helps somebody see that there's another way through a really difficult, or seemingly impossible situation, I feel good," she added. "That's one of the reasons I write." She told another journalist she was pleased with Residual Desire. "I'm happy with all of the stories," she said. "Each one of them is the best that I can make it."Miliokas, Nick. "J. Jill Robinson a master of the short story," Canwest News Service, October 20, 2003.
Residual Desire includes "Deja Vu" a story commissioned by CBC Radio on the recommendation of Guy Vanderhaeghe, winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards. "It's about a woman who's on her way to the Coast stops in Calgary and on a whim, decides to visit her ex-husband," Robinson told a journalist. "It's about how memory works, and yearning for and re-visiting the things that have played an important part in your life."Morash, Gordon. "New western writers get their chance on CBC readings," Edmonton Journal, May 3, 1998, p. F7.
From September 1, 2004, to May 31, 2005, Robinson served as the 24th writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library. In 2009, she and her family moved from Saskatoon to Banff, Alberta where she now lives.
Debut novel Robinson authored More In Anger, a novel published in 2012. It tells the stories of three women from an unhappy family beset by the corrosive anger passed on from one generation to the next. The novel is divided into three sections named after the unlucky Opal, her emotionally cold daughter Pearl and her troubled granddaughter Vivien. It opens in 1915 with Opal's marriage to a misogynistic lawyer whose coldness and cruelty toward his wife and daughters reverberates through succeeding generations in loveless marriages and broken relationships. The novel ends as Vivien struggles to break free from her family's legacy of anger so that her own daughter can escape its destructive cycle.Robinson, J. Jill. (2012) More In Anger. Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers.