Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist, book editor and an author of fiction and non-fiction. He is the past managing editor of Atlantic Books Today magazine.
Chris Benjamin
Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist, book editor and an author of fiction and non-fiction. He is the past managing editor of Atlantic Books Today magazine.
His latest book is The Art of Forgiveness, a collection of 8 linked short stories about 3 boys growing up in the suburban outskirts of Halifax. By turns quirky and hard-edged, they are never despondent, and will leave readers with hope that people—young men in this case—can grow and become better. His previous book, Chasing Paradise: A Hitchhiker’s Search for Home in a World at War with Itself , a travel memoir of hitching in North America before and after 9/11. Memoirist Marjorie Simmins called it “…original in tone – droll, serious, and loving, of the world, and its wacky and wonderful people – and expansive in subject matter.“
His previous fiction book is a short-story collection called Boy With A Problem, which was a finalist for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. His last nonfiction book was Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School.
Released in August 2014, Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School won the Dave Greber Freelance Book Prize before being published, and was named a Nova Scotia Book of Influence by Nova Scotia librarians.
Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada won the 2012 Best Atlantic-Published Book Award and was a finalist for the Richardson Non-Fiction Prize. A series of short video documentaries has been made based on the book.
Chris’ novel, Drive-by Saviours, won the H.R. Percy Prize, was longlisted for a ReLit Prize and made CBC’s Canada Reads Top Essential Books List.
Chris has also published short stories in literary journals, magazines and anthologies (published by the likes of The Fiddlehead, The Ex-Puritan, The Antigonish Review, Descant, The Dalhousie Review, The Nashwaak Review, Roseway, Pottersfield Press, Voiceprint Canada, Rattling Books, Third Person Press, and Fierce Ink) as well as a few poems (like Patching Wormholes with Pancakes).
He has lived and worked in Toronto, British Columbia, St. Lucia, Finland, Indonesia, and Ghana. His current home is Halifax.
