JAEL RICHARDSON

Jael Richardson is the author of The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life, a memoir based on her relationship with her father, CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey. The Stone Thrower was adapted into a children’s book in 2016 and was shortlisted for a Canadian picture book award. Richardson is a book columnist and guest host on CBC’s q. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and lives in Brampton, Ontario where she founded and serves as the Artistic Director for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD). Her debut novel, Gutter Child, is coming January 26, 2021 with HarperCollins Canada.

The Stone Thrower memoir received a CBC Bookie Award and earned Richardson an Acclaim Award and a My People Award as an Emerging Artist. Her first short story “Resurrection Sunday” is published in the anthology Changing the Face of Canadian Literature. Her essay “Conception” is part of Room Magazine’s first Women of Colour edition, and excerpts from her first play, my upside down black face, are published in the anthology T-Dot Griots: An Anthology of Toronto’s Black Storytellers. Richardson was a Toronto District School Board Writer-In-Residence in 2013 and 2016.