Elyse Friedman (born in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada) is a Canadian writer who was raised in

North York North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

.Andrew, Suzanne Alyssa. "Surviving Suburbia." taddlecreekmag.com, Taddle Creek Magazine, 2007. N. Pag. Web. November 1, 2010. Her latest novel, ''The Opportunist,'' released November 29th, 2022.

Education and career

Elyse Friedman is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre.

Personal life

Elyse Friedman lives in Toronto.

Awards and accomplishments

Elyse Friedman has published four novels, one book of short stories, and a book of poems. Her work has been shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium Book Award and the Relit Award. Her story, The Soother, won the Gold National Magazine Award for fiction. Her stories have appeared in the Journey Prize Anthology, Best Canadian Stories and various literary journals and anthologies in Canada and the United States. Elyse's screenplay "Better Now" received the TIFF-CBC Screenwriter Award Jury Prize in 2019. In 2020, her screenplay "The Relationship Experiment" won the TIFF-CBC Screenwriter Award. Spegel, Ashley. "Toronto writer's Screen Play Becomes Major Motion Picture." Canadian Jewish News. May 1, 2008. Page 43. She has also won the Tom Hendry Award.

Published works

Films and screenplays

*'' Suddenly Naked'', 2001 A comedy about a 40-year-old novelist who falls in love with a writer who is much younger. Originally titled Show & Tell, Suddenly Naked appeared on film festival screens in places such as

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Berlin,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. This movie earned six

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for scu ...

nominations, including Best Picture, and won an award for best editing. *'' Birds of America'', 2008

Novels and short stories

*''Then Again'', 1999 In Then Again, Friedman "Fashions characters who go to extraordinary lengths in their efforts to escape or recapture the past; as they discover the high price that accompanies the knowledge that neither of these things is possible." Then Again highlights the "limits of family loyalty and the necessity of choosing to live for oneself when the demand of others becomes intolerable."Jamieson, Sara. "Three First Novels," Canadian Literature 176 (2003): 147. Friedman has said that she wrote this book because she "wanted to talk about the lingering effects on the children of

holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

survivors. There's a residue that remains and has an effect on children. healso wanted to explore the ideas of subjective memory – how different siblings can have different takes on the same environment." Then Again is a prominent book in bookstores and is published by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

.Gladstone, Bill. "Author's Debut Novel and Upbeat, Funny Book." Canadian Jewish News. December 9, 1999. 29.48: 37. Web. October 25, 2010. *''Long Story Short'', 2004 In Long Story Short, Friedman has put together a collection of short stories that "document the lives of six perverse and eccentric protagonists who share one common characteristic: living lives that have somehow gone off kilter" Long Story Short was published by

Anansi Anansi ( ; literally translates to ''spider'') is an Akan folktale character and the Akan God of Stories, Wisdom, Knowledge, and possibly creation. The form of a spider is the most common depiction of Anansi. He is also, sometimes considered to ...

. *''Waking Beauty'', 2004 *''Long Story Short, a Novella & Stories'', 2007 The Answer to Everything, 2014 The Opportunist, 2022

Poetry

*''Know Your Monkey'', 2003

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Elyse 20th-century Canadian novelists Canadian women screenwriters Canadian women novelists Living people Writers from Toronto 1963 births 21st-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Canadian Film Centre alumni 21st-century Canadian screenwriters