About Charlotte

Charlotte Gray is one of Canada’s best-known writers of literary non-fiction. Born in Sheffield, England, and educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, she began her writing career in England as a magazine editor and newspaper columnist. After coming to Canada in 1979, she worked as a political commentator, book reviewer and magazine columnist before she turned to biography and popular history.

Charlotte is the author of twelve non-fiction books, plus countless magazine articles and book reviews. Her latest book is Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt (September 2023 publication).

In 2016, to contribute to Canada’s Sesquicentennial year, Charlotte published The Promise of Canada: People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country, which became a major bestseller and won the Ottawa Book Award. Her previous book, The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and The Trial that Shocked a Country, won the Toronto Book Award and the Toronto Heritage Book Award, and was long-listed for the B.C. Non-fiction Award, and shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Award, the Ottawa Award for Non-Fiction and the Evergreen Award. An adaptation of her 2010 bestseller Gold Diggers, Striking It Rich in the Klondike was broadcast as a television miniseries in early 2014 on the US Discovery Channel, under the title “Klondike.” In 2008, Charlotte published Nellie McClung, a short biography of Canada’s leading women’s rights activist in the Penguin Series, Extraordinary Canadians. Her 2006 bestseller, Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell, won the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History and the City of Ottawa Book Award. It was also nominated for the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, the National Business Book Award and the Trillium Award.

Her previous five books, which include Sisters in the Wilderness, The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, Flint & Feather, The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson and A Museum Called Canada, were all award-winning bestsellers. In 2014, she was short-listed as "Author of the Year" by the Canadian Booksellers Association. Sisters in the Wilderness was chosen by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the 25 most important books of LRC’s first 25 years.

Charlotte appears regularly on radio and television as a political and cultural commentator, and is a regular book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, Literary Review of Canada and Canada’s History. She has also written for the UK Guardian, Walrus, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and most major Canadian magazines. She has been a celebrity panelist, championing Jane Urquhart’s novel Away, in CBC Radio’s annual battle of the books, Canada Reads, and was the advocate for Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, for the CBC series: The Greatest Canadian. She has been a judge for several of Canada’s most prestigious literary prizes, including the Giller Prize for Fiction, the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-fiction and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. In 2019, she was the only Canadian member of the jury for the Cundill Prize, the distinguished international award for the best English-language history book of 2018. In 2023, she was a member of the inaugural jury for the Weston International Award for Non-fiction, administered by the Writers Trust.

An Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, Charlotte is a recipient of the Pierre Berton Award for distinguished achievement in popularizing Canadian history. She is former chair of the board of Canada’s National History Society, which publishes the magazine Canada’s History, and of the Art Canada Institute/Institut de l’Art Canadien. For twelve years she sat on the board of the Ottawa International Authors Festival. She currently sits on the boards of the Canadian-American Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, and the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa.

Charlotte has been awarded five honorary doctorates, from Mount St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, York University and Carleton University. Charlotte is a member of the Order of Canada, a Library and Archives Canada Scholar, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Charlotte lives in Ottawa with her husband George Anderson. They have three adult sons.

Journalism Awards and Prizes

2007 National Magazine Awards Honourable Mention
(Chatelaine profile of Naomi Klein)
2006 Western Magazine Gold Award
(Beaver article on magazine’s history)
2000 National Magazine Awards Honourable Mention
(Canadian Geographic feature on early photographer)
1998 Ottawa Life Sciences Council Print Media Award
(Saturday Night article on artificial heart research)
1996 National Magazine Award
(Saturday Night columns)
1996 Robertine Barry prize, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
(Chatelaine feature on sexuality)
1991 Canadian Authors Award
(Saturday Night article on the Canadian Mint)
1985 Elizabeth Bagshaw Media Award
(Chatelaine feature on contraceptive research)
1968 Catharine Pakenham Award for most promising journalist in the U.K. under 30

Book Awards and Nominations

Murdered Midas

Winner of the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction

The Promise of Canada

Winner of the Canadian Authors Award for Canadian History
Winner of the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction

The Massey Murder

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for the Best Non-fiction Crime Book of 2014-2015
Winner of Toronto Book Award
Winner of Heritage Toronto Book Award
Winner of Canadian Authors Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History
Shortlisted for Libris Award Non-fiction book of the year 2013
Shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Award for Non-fiction
Shortlisted for the Evergreen Award
Shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction
Longlisted for the B.C. Non-fiction Award
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year
An Amazon.ca Top 100 Book of the Year
Selected for Kitchener-Waterloo Region One Book One Community programme 2014

Gold Diggers

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year
US Discovery Channel's 2014 television series Klondike, based on Charlotte's book
PBS 2014 documentary on gold rush drawn from Charlotte's book
Included in Reader’s Digest North American Encounters 2012, Today’s Best Non-fiction
Long-listed for the B.C. Non-fiction Award
Shortlisted for the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction

Reluctant Genius

In development as a mini-series by Toronto's White Pine Pictures and UK's STV Productions
Winner of the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History
Winner of the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction
Shortlisted for the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the National Business Book Award
Shortlisted for the Trillium Award

The Museum Called Canada

Winner of Canadian Authors Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History

Flint & Feather

Winner of University of British Columbia Medal for Biography
Winner of Drummer-General’s Award
Shortlisted for Writers’ Trust Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize
Shortlisted for the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction

Sisters in the Wilderness

Winner of Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario History
Winner of Canadian Booksellers Association Award for Best Non-fiction Book
Shortlisted for the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction
Named by the Literary Review of Canada in 2016 as one of the 25 most important books of the past 25 years

Mrs. King

One of Canada's Top Forty Non-fiction Books (CBC 2011)
Winner of Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction
Winner of Canadian Authors Medal for Non-fiction
Winner of Heritage Toronto Commendation
Shortlisted for Governor-General’s Award for Non-fiction
Shortlisted for the City of Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction

Appointments

2005-present Adjunct Research Professor, Department of History, Carleton University
April-June, 2008 Writer-in-residence, Berton House, Dawson City, Yukon

Honours

2021 Library and Archives Canada Scholar
2011 Honorary Doctorate, Carleton University
2009 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
2009 Algonquin College Media Hall of Fame
2007 Member of the Order of Canada
2007 Honorary Doctorate, York University
2006 Honorary Doctorate, Queen’s University
2005 Honorary Doctorate, University of Ottawa
2003 Pierre Berton Award for Distinguished Achievement in Popularizing Canadian History
1995 Honorary Doctorate, Mount St. Vincent University, N.S.

Publicity Photographs

If you want a photograph of Charlotte for publicity material etc, see images below. You are welcome to use one: please credit Valberg Imaging.