DANILA BOTHA

Danila Botha (She/Her) is a Canadian fiction writer based in Toronto. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, she has also lived in Israel, and in Nova Scotia. She is the author of five books. Her first collection of short stories, Got No Secrets, was published in 2010 and praised by the Globe and Mail, the Chronicle Herald and the Cape Town Times. It was also named one of Britannica’s Books of the Year (Canadian short stories) in 2011, and was also published in South Africa.

 

Her debut novel, Too Much on the Inside, which was published in 2015, was shortlisted for the 2016 ReLit award, and won a Book Excellence Award for Contemporary Novel.  It was optioned for film by Pelee Entertainment in 2023.

 

Her critically acclaimed sophomore collection of short stories, For All the Men (and Some of the Women)I've Known was named a finalist for the 2017 Trillium Awards, the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, and the ReLit awards.

 

Danila has been the Writer in Residence and guest columnist at Open Book, a panelist,  host and delegate at Toronto International Festival of Authors , a panelist at Word on the Street Toronto and Word on the Street Halifax. She has contributed to the National Post's The Afterword, the 49th Shelf, Humber Literary Review, the Hamilton Review of Books and more.

 

She has hosted workshops on short fiction for the Muskoka Author's Association, been a Keynote speaker at a From Pen to Published conference, and has been one of the judges of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for short fiction alongside Souvankham Thammavonga and paulo da costa (2024) The Guernica Fiction Prize alongside KR Wilson and Banoo Zan (2021)  The Canadian Authors Association's Short Fiction contest,  and Hart House's short fiction contest, alongside Daniel Tysdal and Laura Lush, among many others. She will also be one of the judges of the US Women's Fiction Writer's Association's Rising Star Award in 2024. 

Danila has been invited to read at festivals and reading series' across the country. She was also the 2020-2022 writer -in- residence at the Toronto Heliconian Club. 

 

She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Toronto SCS and is part of the faculty at Humber School for Writers. She studied Creative Writing at York University, and at Humber's School For Writers. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Guelph.

 

Her third collection of short stories, Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness was  published by Guernica Editions in April 2024. It was named by The Toronto Star as one of Twenty-One Books to Put At the Top Of Your Reading List, and by 49th Shelf among their most anticipated for Spring 2024 in their fiction preview.

It's been described as exhibiting "Chekhovian humanism and pulsing empathy" by the Miramichi Reader, as "compelling, highly readable and frequently relatable" by the Winnipeg Free Press, and as "full of unmatched precision...illuminat[ing] truths about the world with economy and elegance" by Open Book.  The title story, Things that Cause Inappropriate Happiness, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Blank Spaces Magazine. The collection was recently named a finalist for the Canadian Book Club Awards, (Canada's largest reader's choice awards) in the Anthology/Short Story Category.

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Stories from the collection have been widely published in Canadian publications like the anthology Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, Humber Literary Review, Grain Magazine, Esoterica Magazine, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Espresso Books and more, American publications like Aerogramme Center for Arts and Culture Magazine, Assignment Magazine,  34th Parallel Magazine, On the Run Fiction and more and in European publications like Bristol Noir, Berlin Literary Review, and Beyond Words Magazine. Other stories have appeared  The Antigonish Review, Jewishfiction.net, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Blank Spaces Magazine and more.

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Her fifth book, a novel called A Place for People Like Us will be published in 2025 by Guernica Editions.  She is currently writing and illustrating her first graphic novel, and is working on a new collection of short fiction. 

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