Blanche Howard was born Blanche Machon. She earned a B.Sc at the University of Alberta and married Bruce Howard in 1945. She taught chemistry at the University of Toronto while he was overseas, then moved to the Okanagan Valley of B.C. and raised three children. She dabbled in writing until poverty struck, then articled with a firm of chartered accountants and earned a C.A. degree in 1962. Her husband was elected with the Trudeau gang in 1968, moved to Ottawa and began to write in earnest. She moved to North Vancouver in 1973, and wrote, taught, and practised accounting for money and finally retired from accounting--but never from writing. A dozen short stories have been published in various magazines, mostly literary quarterlies. A full-length play adapted from the novel, A Celibate Season, was a finalist in the 1989 Canadian National Theatre Playwriting Competition and was produced in Vancouver in 1990, and is listed in I.R. Theatre, accessible on the web.
PUBLICATIONS:
A Memoir of Friendship: Letters Between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard. Edited by Blanche Howard and Allison Howard. Penguin Canada, Viking edition, 2007
Penelope's Way. Coteau Books, 2000.
A Celibate Season. with Carol Shields. Random House of Canada, 1998; Fourth Estate, U.K. 1998; Penguin Edition, U.S., 1999; Coteau Books, 1991.
The Immortal Soul of Edwin Carlysle. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977.
Pretty Lady. Toronto: General, 1976.
The Manipulator. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972.
AWARDS:
Canada Council Arts Grant, 1976. 1996, 2000.
Canadian Booksellers' Award for The Manipulator, 1973.
