Description: Emily Urquhart is a folklorist and writer. She is working on a memoir about parenting a child with a genetic condition that also looks at the stories people tell to explain human differences.
I have worked as a freelance writer for two decades and my narrative nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in Guernica, Longreads , The Walrus, The Rumpus, The Literary Review of Canada and The Toronto Star among other publications. I am a five-time National Magazine Award nominee (and once I won silver!), a Digital Magazine Award nominee, and few years ago a bizarre story I wrote about a radioactive house won an Alberta Magazine Award.
I have a doctorate in folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland , and for my field research I relocated to a small outport community on the island’s east coast to record the arrival narratives of local and seasonal residents, analyzing these texts using the motifs and characters of traditional folk tales.
Following my PhD, I drew on my folklore background and my evolving knowledge of disability and ableism in my first book, Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes , which was nominated for the Kobo First Book Award, a British Columbia Book Prize, and the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and was a Globe and Mail Best Book.