Member Profile

Roy MacSkimming's new novel, Laurier in Love, portrays Sir Wilfrid Laurier enmeshed in a passionate, enduring love triangle as he leads Canada into a new century. Both epic and intimate in scale, the story is told through the eyes of two remarkably realized women, Zoe Laurier and Emilie Lavergne. "MacSkimming's prose," writes the Ottawa Citizen, "places Laurier into some of the most erotically charged situations ever penned for a prime minister." MacSkimming's previous novel, Macdonald, recreates the final days of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's indomitable first prime minister. The Globe & Mail called it "[an] engaging novel handled with imagination, sympathy and verve, making a hugely enjoyable read," and Nino Ricci said, "MacSkimming not only brings Macdonald to life, he brings him into our hearts." MacSkimming's The Perilous Trade, a study of Canadian book publishing, was a Globe & Mail Best 100 book of the year and a finalist for the 2003 National Business Book Award. MacSkimming has published two other novels, Formentera and Out of Love, both translated into French. He has also written Gordie, an unauthorized biography of hockey legend Gordie Howe, and Cold War, an account of the great 1972 Canada-Soviet hockey series. A native of Ottawa, MacSkimming co-founded New Press in 1969. He has been books editor and literary columnist at The Toronto Star, an official with the Canada Council for the Arts, and policy director of the Association of Canadian Publishers. He lives near Perth, Ontario.