Graeme Gibson

{{Infobox writer

| name = Graeme Gibson

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|CM|FRCGS|size=100%}}

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| birth_name = Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1934|8|9|df=y}}

| birth_place = London, Ontario, Canada

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2019|09|18|1934|8|9|df=y}}

| death_place = London, England

| occupation = Novelist

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| alma_mater = University of Western Ontario

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| genres = {{hlist | Novel | non-fiction}}

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| notableworks = Perpetual Motion (1982)

| spouse = Shirley Gibson ({{abbr|div.|divorced}} {{circa|1973}})

| partner = Margaret Atwood (1973–2019)

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Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson {{post-nominals|country=CAN|CM|FRCGS}} (9 August 1934 – 18 September 2019) was a Canadian novelist.[http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/gibson-graeme/ Graeme Gibson's] entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia. He was a Member of the Order of Canada (1992), a Senior Fellow of Massey College and one of the organizers of the Writers Union of Canada (chair, 1974–75). He was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.

Career

The elder son of Brigadier General Thomas Graeme Gibson, a career Army officer, and radio singer Mary (née Cameron), of Australian origin,{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/09/19/graeme-gibson-experimental-novelist-environmental-activist-source/ | title=Graeme Gibson, experimental novelist and environmental activist who was a source of great support to his wife, Margaret Atwood – obituary | newspaper=The Telegraph | date=19 September 2019 }}

Gibson's family frequently moved around during his childhood, going from Halifax to Ottawa to Toronto where he attended Upper Canada College.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-author-graeme-gibson-was-a-leader-of-canadas-literary-scene/|title=Author Graeme Gibson was a leader of Canada's literary scene|access-date=2019-10-01}} As an author, Gibson wrote both novels and non-fiction. His first novel, Five Legs (1969), is widely regarded as a breakthrough in Canadian experimental literature.{{cite web|url=https://canlit.ca/full-issue/?issue=42|title=The Muse Acclimatized|publisher=Canadian Literature|date=1969}} His other novels include Communion (1971), Gentleman Death (1993), and Perpetual Motion (1982). His non-fiction included Eleven Canadian Novelists (1973) and more recently, The Bedside Book of Birds (2005) and The Bedside Book of Beasts (2009).

Gibson was awarded the Toronto Arts Award (1990) the Harbourfront Festival prize in 1993, and he was made a member of the Order of Canada.

An arts, environmental and social justice advocate, Gibson was one of the founders of the Writers' Union of Canada, which recognized his contribution by establishing an award in his honour in 1991.{{cite web|url=https://www.writersunion.ca/graeme-gibson-award|title=Graeme Gibson Award|date=22 May 2012 |publisher=The Writers Union of Canada|accessdate = 28 September 2019}} He was involved in the formation of the Writer's Trust of Canada and was a co-founder and president (1987–89) of PEN Canada.{{cite web|url=https://www.writerstrust.com/about|title=Our Story|publisher=Writers' Trust of Canada|accessdate = 28 September 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://pencanada.ca/news/in-memoriam-graeme-gibson/|title=In Memoriam Graeme Gibson|date=19 September 2019 |publisher=PEN Canada|accessdate = 28 September 2019}} He also had a small acting role in the 1983 film The Wars.

His environmental advocacy was largely focused around his longtime love of birds. He was a founder and chair of the Pelee Island Bird Observatory, served on the Council of the World Wildlife Fund, and with Margaret Atwood, as co-chair of Birdlife International's Rare Bird Club. He was a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, which awarded him a Gold Medal in 2015.{{cite web|url=https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/remembering-author-and-environmentalist-graeme-gibson|title=Remembering Author and Environmentalist Graeme Gibson|publisher=Canadian Geographic Society|accessdate = 28 September 2019}}

Personal life

Gibson was married to publisher Shirley Gibson until the early 1970s, and together they had two sons, Matt and Grae.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/26/fiction.margaretatwood|title=Light in the wilderness|last=Potts|first=Robert|date=2003-04-26|work=The Guardian|access-date=2017-07-05|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/the-elusive-margaret-atwood/|title=The elusive Margaret Atwood {{!}} Quill and Quire|date=2004-04-28|work=Quill and Quire|access-date=2017-07-05}} He began dating novelist and poet Margaret Atwood in 1973. They moved to a semi-derelict farm near Alliston, Ontario, which they set about doing up and where according to Atwood they were making "attempts at farming, writing and trying to earn enough to live". Their daughter Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson was born there in 1976. The family returned to Toronto in 1980.{{cite book|last=Sutherland|first=John|title=Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aV9ot7kGdi4C&pg=PA721|year=2012|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-18243-9|page=721}} Atwood and Gibson stayed together until his death in 2019.

In 2017 Gibson was diagnosed with early signs of vascular dementia.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia|title=Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2019-09-18}} Despite having written a book on birds, he could no longer identify those he liked to watch in his garden, but said "I no longer know their names, but then, they don't know my name either".{{Cite news |title=Margaret Atwood on feminism, culture wars and speaking her mind: 'I'm very willing to listen, but not to be scammed' |last=Freeman |first=Hadley |newspaper=The Guardian |date=19 February 2022 |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2022/feb/19/margaret-atwood-on-feminism-culture-wars}} He died on 18 September 2019 in London, England, where Atwood was promoting her new book, five days after suffering a severe stroke.{{cite tweet |author=Penguin Random House|user=penguinrandom |number=1174339098720571399 |date=18 September 2019 |title=Doubleday today shares the sad news that celebrated Canadian author Graeme Gibson has died }}{{cite web|url=https://www.cp24.com/entertainment-news/canadian-author-graeme-gibson-dead-at-85-1.4598787|title=Canadian author Graeme Gibson dead at 85|publisher=CP24|date=2019-09-18}} Atwood later said about his death that it had not been unexpected due to the vascular dementia, had been a good one—and in a good hospital, and his children had time to come and say goodbye—and that he had been "declining and he had wanted to check out before he reached any further stages of that".{{Cite web |title=Margaret Atwood: 'If you're going to speak truth to power, make sure it's the truth' |author=Miranda Sawyer |newspaper=The Guardian|date = 12 September 2020 |url= https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/12/margaret-atwood-if-youre-going-to-speak-truth-to-power-make-sure-its-the-truth }}

Following his death, the Writers' Trust of Canada renamed its annual fiction award, formerly the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, to the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize in early 2021.[https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/writers-trust-renames-fiction-prize-after-co-founders-and-couple-atwood-and-gibson-1.5284325 "Writers' Trust renames fiction prize after co-founders and couple Atwood and Gibson"]. CTV News, January 27, 2021.