Conor Kerr, MFA, BA
Pronouns: he, him, his
Personal Website: http://www.conorkerr.ca
Contact
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Arts - English & Film Studies Dept
- ckerr1@ualberta.ca
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
Creative Writing Indigenous Literatures Métis Harvesting Narratives
About
Conor Kerr is a national award–winning (and losing) Métis/Ukrainian writer and bird hunter living in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), born in Saskatoon, and raised in Buffalo Pound Lake and Drayton Valley. He is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. His Ukrainian family are settlers on Treaty 4 Territory. Conor is the author of the novels Avenue of Champions (2021), which won the 2022 RELIT Award, was shortlisted for the 2022 Amazon/Walrus Debut Novel Award, and was longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize, and Prairie Edge (2024), which was shortlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize and the 2024 Writer’s Trust Atwood Gibson Fiction Award and won the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada best novel award; the poetry collections An Explosion of Feathers (2021) and Old Gods (2023), which was shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Poetry and named one of CBC’s Best Books of 2023, and Beaver Hills Forever (2025) which received the 2026 Writers Guild of Alberta's Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. He has a forthcoming book, Duck Blind, out in the Fall of 2027.
Courses
ENGL 308 - Topics in Indigenous Literature
Prerequisite: 6 units of junior ENGL, or 3 units of junior ENGL and 3 units of junior WRS. Note: variable content course which may be repeated if topics vary.
ENGL 574 - Creative Writing
WRITE 397 - Intermediate Nonfiction
Lectures and workshop focusing on selected elements of nonfiction technique and form. Prerequisite: WRITE 297 or WRITE 298 unless waived by Instructor; a minimum grade of B+ in the prerequisite course is strongly recommended.
WRITE 495 - Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
Prerequisite: WRITE 393 or WRITE 395 unless waived by Instructor; a minimum grade of B+ in the prerequisite course is strongly recommended.
WRITE 535 - Directed Creative Writing/Creative Research Project
Design and completion of an undergraduate project under the guidance of a member of the Department. The project is to be an original creative project judged by the Department to be the equivalent of a half-year creative writing course for 3 units, or a full-year creative writing course for 6 units. Prerequisite: successful completion of 6 units WRITE credits or the equivalent, with consent of Department and Instructor.