Danial Neil – community planner turned poet/fiction writer has to get out of the house to get the creative juices going.
Latest Novel – The Trees of Calan Gray
Neil was born in New Westminster in 1954 and grew up in North Delta. He won the poetry prize at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference four times and studied Creative Writing at UBC. His poetry and fiction articulate a close relationship with the land, its felt presence in his narrative and vision. Danial retired and now lives in Oliver.
The Trees of Calan Gray (Oolichan) is a novel that was slated to appear in spring of 2014, published by Oolichan, but it was delayed one year until 2015, therefore not impeding the positive reception afforded Neil’s novel ‘my June’ (Ronsdale).
First Novel – Killing Jars – 2006
Danial Neil began writing in his teens journaling and writing poetry. He made a decision to be writer in 1986 and took his first creative writing course in Langley with Rhody Lake. From that time he went on to write ten novels, mostly after work (never quitting his day job as a Sr. Development Technologist for the City of Delta). His short story, Grace, was published in the 2003 Federation of BC Writers anthology edited by Susan Musgrave.
He participated in the Write Stretch Program with the Federation of BC Writers teaching free verse poetry to children. Danial Neil has won the poetry prize at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference four times and has studied Creative Writing at UBC.
Neil says The Trees of Calan Gray was inspired, in part, by a 2010 CBC interview with Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of The Global Forest. The novel was also written to commemorate the United Nations declaration of 2011 as the International Year of Forests–an open invitation to the world to come together and work with governments, international organizations and civil society, to ensure that our forests are managed sustainably for current and future generations.
The Killing Jars 2006
Flight of the Dragonfly 2009
‘my June’ 2014
The Trees of Calan Gray 2015