Mary Lou Dickinson grew up in northern Quebec and migrated to Toronto via Montreal and Michigan. She studied Arts at McGill University and Library Science at University of Toronto before discovering workshops and residencies in creative writing. Her fiction has been published in the University of Windsor Review, Descant, Waves, Grain, Northern Journey, The Fiddlehead, Impulse, Writ and broadcast on CBC Radio. Her writing was also included in the anthology, We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman. Inanna published a book of Dickinson's short stories, One Day It Happens, in 2007, and her first novel, Ile d'Or, in 2010, both to excellent reviews in The Globe and Mail, among others.