Jean McNeil was born in Nova Scotia and grew up on Cape Breton Island. She studied at the University of Toronto and University College, London. She is a novelist and short story writer, a teacher and a publisher. She has lived for much of the last sixteen years in London, though travelling extensively in Latin America, and most recently to the Antarctic. Her published novels include Hunting Down Home, Private View and The Interpreter of Silences. Her travel writing includes The Rough Guide to Costa Rica and The Rough Guide to Central America. She has received and been nominated for a number of awards for short stories and fiction, including: nomination for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in Canada 2003; winner of the Prism International Fiction Competition 1997; and she has been the recipient of a New London Writers Award from the London Arts Board in 1997. In 2005/06 she was a British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council fellow in Antarctica. She has taught at the Arvon Foundation and currently teaches on the MA in creative writing course at the University of East Anglia.
She is at work on two projects: one novel and one work of non fiction, inspired by her experiences in Antarctica. You can visit Jean's page on the Arts Council website by clicking on this link Jean in the Antarctic
To read more about Jean McNeil's Antarctic experiences in the German bilingual online Magazine Goonclick here
Featured TitleThe Interpreter of Silences
Like Alastair MacLeod...Jean McNeil demonstrates an uncanny ability to create a world, if not a universe, in an east coast village smaller than a city block.Toronto Star
The Interpreter of Silences was published by McArthur & Company in Canada in April 2006.
Jean McNeil was born in Nova Scotia and grew up on Cape Breton Island. She studied at the University of Toronto and University College, London. She is a novelist and short story writer, a teacher and a publisher. She has lived for much of the last sixteen years in London, though travelling extensively in Latin America, and most recently to the Antarctic. Her published novels include Hunting Down Home, Private View and The Interpreter of Silences. Her travel writing includes The Rough Guide to Costa Rica and The Rough Guide to Central America. She has received and been nominated for a number of awards for short stories and fiction, including: nomination for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in Canada 2003; winner of the Prism International Fiction Competition 1997; and she has been the recipient of a New London Writers Award from the London Arts Board in 1997. In 2005/06 she was a British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council fellow in Antarctica. She has taught at the Arvon Foundation and currently teaches on the MA in creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. 
Featured Title The Interpreter of Silences 
Jean McNeil in the Antarctic 2006