Aritha van Herk is a public intellectual and motivational cultural speaker as well as an award winning Canadian novelist whose work has been acclaimed throughout North America and Europe. She has given readings, lectures, and workshops on culture and community, literature and life, in the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Australia, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria, the Baltics, and Scandinavia. Her popular, creative and critical work has been widely published and her work has been translated into ten languages.

She was born in central Alberta, read every book in the library at Camrose, and studied at the University of Alberta. She first rose to international literary prominence with the publication of Judith, which received the Seal First Novel Award and which was published in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. Her other books include The Tent Peg; No Fixed Address: An Amorous Journey; Places Far From Ellesmere; Restlessness; In Visible Ink and A Frozen Tongue. Her most recent expedition into time and words is Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta, which won the Grant McEwan Author’s Award.

She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Professor who teaches Canadian Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of English at the University of Calgary, but first of all, she is a writer who loves stories.