SHASHI BHAT is the author of the forthcoming novel, Spinster (McClelland & Stewart, 2027); the story collection Death by a Thousand Cuts (M&S, April 2024), winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, longlisted for the Giller Prize, selected as a Globe and Mail best book of the year, a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award, the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, and nominated for the Evergreen Award; and the novels The Most Precious Substance on Earth (M&S, Canada, 2021; Grand Central, 2022), a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction, and The Family Took Shape (Cormorant, 2013), a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
Her fiction has appeared in publications across North America, including Hazlitt, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, Best Canadian Stories 2018, 2019, 2021 & 2026, Journey Prize Stories 24 & 30, and others. She won a 2025 silver National Magazine Award for fiction and the 2018 Journey Prize. She has been a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award and has been long-listed for the Commonwealth Prize.
Shashi has served on juries for the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council, and the National Magazine Awards, and has been a fiction contest judge for The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Room magazine, and others. She was a judge for the the 2025 Bronwen Wallace Award and the 2024 Commonwealth Prize. She has appeared in literary festivals across Canada.
Shashi holds an MFA from The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and a BA from Cornell University. She is editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.
For more information: https://shashibhat.com/