biography

Rae St. Clair Bridgman is a Professor in City Planning at University of Manitoba and an author of academic works, as well as an author and illustrator of children's literature.

Her fantasy-adventure novels for kids include:

The Serpent’s Spell (Great Plains, 2006)
- 2007 Finalist, McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award

Amber Ambrosia (Great Plains, 2007)

Fish & Sphinx (Great Plains, 2008)
- 2008 Honourable Mention, Speculative Literature Foundation
- nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Kingdom of Trolls (Sybertooth 2011)
- 2011 Meanbeam Children's Book Award (Bronze Medal, Pre-Teen Fiction - Fantasy).

Reviews of her young adult novels have been glowing: “a unique feel,” “in a class of [their] own,” “sentence after sentence of melodiously evocative language,” “superb page-turning flight of fancy,” “characters are exciting and fresh and the [plots are] fast-paced and creative,” and “extraordinary in a delightfully ordinary way.”

She is also the author of StreetCities: Rehousing the Homeless (Broadview Press, 2006) and Safe Haven: The Story of a Shelter for Homeless Women (University of Toronto Press, 2003), co-author of Braving the Street: The Anthropology of Homelessness (Berghahn Books, 1999) and co-editor of Feminist Fields: Ethnographic Insights (Broadview Press, 1999). She has been the recipient of many research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and is a practicing visual artist with many exhibitions and arts grants to her name.

As well, Rae St. Clair Bridgman is an urban planner and founding member of BridgmanCollaborative Architecture, an award-winning Winnipeg architectural firm that specializes in new design and heritage buildings, participatory design and planning, green architecture and community revitalization.

She is a member of CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers, SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), CCBC (Canadian Children's Book Centre), the Writers' Union of Canada, SF Canada (Canada's National Association for Speculative Fiction Professionals), Manitoba Writers' Guild and Winnipeg's Writers' Collective.

She grew up on an old farm in Maple, Ontario north of Toronto, and earned her B.A. (classics) and Bachelor of Music at the University of Toronto, and her Master's (interdisciplinary studies) and PhD (cultural anthropology) at York University.