Fran Kimmel

Fran Kimmel writes literary fiction, short stories, stage plays, and radio drama from central Alberta. Her debut novel, The Shore Girl, follows Rebee Shore from early childhood into her teenage years through a shifting group of narrators. Its 2012 NeWest Press edition received the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award. No Good Asking, released by ECW Press in 2018, begins when former police officer Eric finds a neighboring child outside in dangerous winter weather and brings her into his already strained household. That novel reached the shortlists for the ReLit Award and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Kimmel studied sociology at the University of Calgary and later held roles in youth work, career counselling, communications, and organizational consulting. Those experiences inform her precise attention to families under pressure, social services, and the practical forms that care can take.