Lola Lemire Tostevin was born into a French-speaking family in Northern Ontario (Timmins) although she writes mainly in English. She has published seven collections of poetry, one collection of literary essays and two novels. Her work has been translated into French and Italian. She has also taught creative writing at York University in the 1980s and '90s and was writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario during the 2004-05 academic year. Her work has been the subject of several graduate and post-graduate theses. Fully bilingual, she currently devotes most of her time to writing. She lives in Toronto with her family.