Robert McGill (born 1976) is a Canadian writer and literary critic. He was born and raised inWiarton, Ontario.[1] His parents were physical education teachers.[2] He graduated fromQueen's University inKingston, Ontario in 1999. He attended theUniversity of Oxford as aRhodes Scholar, then completed the MA program in Creative Writing at theUniversity of East Anglia.[3] After graduating with a PhD in English from theUniversity of Toronto, Robert moved toCambridge, Massachusetts, and took up a Junior Fellowship with theHarvard University Society of Fellows.[4] He now teaches Creative Writing and Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto.[5]
McGill wrote his first novel,The Mysteries, at the University of East Anglia.[6] It was published in 2004, when he was 28.[7]The Mysteries tells of the disappearance of a woman from a fictional small town and the uncovering of local secrets.[3] Told from twelve characters’ perspectives, the story moves back and forward over two years.[8] Prominent in the novel is a stonehenge inspired by the real Keppel Henge inBig Bay, Ontario.[9]
McGill began his second novel,Once We Had a Country, while a Harvard Junior Fellow.[6] Once We Had a Country tells the story of a young schoolteacher named Maggie who leaves the United States with her boyfriend, Fletcher, in the summer of 1972 to start a commune on a farm nearNiagara Falls. When the US government ends the military draft for theVietnam War, Fletcher faces family pressure to return home, while Maggie has to deal with the disappearance of her father, a missionary in Laos.[10]
McGill's third novel,A Suitable Companion for the End of Your Life, was published in 2022.[11]
McGill's short fiction has been published in literary magazines includingGrain,Descant, andThe Fiddlehead[3], as well as inToronto Life,The Dalhousie Review, andThe New Quarterly[5]. In 2013 his story “The Stress of Lives” was published inHazlitt[12] and in 2021 his story "Something Something Alice Munro" was published inThe Atlantic.[11]
In 2024 he published the short story collectionSimple Creatures.[13]
McGill's bookThe Treacherous Imagination: Intimacy, Ethics, and Autobiographical Fiction investigates people's sense of betrayal when they believe they have been turned into characters in novels or stories.[14]
In 2017, he published a second monograph,War Is Here: The Vietnam War and Canadian Literature.[15] He has also edited an online anthology,Canadian Literature of the Vietnam War.[16]
His other academic publications include articles on Canadian writersAlice Munro,[17][18][19]Elizabeth Smart,[20]Thomas King,[21]Hugh MacLennan,[20] andMichael Ondaatje,[22] as well as articles on teaching literary citizenship (co-authored with André Babyn),[23] biographical interpretation in fiction workshops,[24] negotiating cultural difference in creative writing workshops (co-authored with Noor Naga),[25] and myths of literary mentorship (co-authored with Neil Surkan).[26]
In 2001, McGill was a finalist for theRBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. In 2002, two of his stories, “Confidence Men” and “The Stars Are Falling,” were nominated for theJourney Prize and selected for theJourney Prize Anthology 14.[27] In 2003, his story “Nobody Goes to Vancouver to Die” was shortlisted for aCanadian National Magazine Award.
The Mysteries was named one of the top five Canadian fiction books of 2004 byQuill & Quire.[28] It was also the winner of the 2006 Western Reads competition, garnering twice as many votes as the second-place book.[29]
McGill's scholarly writing has won the Juliet McLauchlan Prize of the Joseph Conrad Society,[6] as well as the George Wicken Prize in Canadian Literature.[30]
In 2018, McGill won the Robert Kroetsch Teaching Award from Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (CCWWP).[31]
Simple Creatures was shortlisted for the 2025Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.[32]
