Heather O'Neill is a highly acclaimed Canadian novelist, poet, screenwriter, short story author, and journalist. She was born in Montreal and spent some of her childhood in the Southern United States before returning to Montreal where she has lived since. O'Neill has had a successful writing career, with numerous awards and accolades to her name. She has won the Canada Reads competition, the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and the Writers' Trust Fellowship 2019.
In addition to her success in novel writing, O'Neill has also made strides in screenwriting. She wrote the screenplay for the 2000 movie St. Jude and her short story The End of Pinky was adapted into a 2013 animated short. O'Neill's writing has also been featured in various publications such as The New York Times Magazine, This American Life, The Globe and Mail, Elle Magazine, The Walrus, and Rookie Magazine.
O'Neill's writing career took off with the publication of her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was an international bestseller and won the Canada Reads competition in 2007. It was also awarded the Hugh Maclennan Award in the same year and was nominated for eight other awards including the Orange Prize, the Governor General's Award, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. O'Neill's subsequent novels, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night (2014) and Daydreams of Angels (2015), were both shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Her third novel, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, was published in February 2017.