Even at one and a half, there was nothing Charis liked quite so much as a cemetery.
Charis Cotter went to camp for ten years and never wanted to go home at the end of camp. Growing up beside a cemetery, she became well acquainted with ghosts and has been living with them ever since. She studied English in university and went to drama school in London, England. Now she lives at the end of a road by the ocean in Newfoundland, where the landscape and a plentiful supply of ghosts inspire her work.
Her first book, Toronto Between the Wars: Life in the City 1919–1939, won the Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence in 2005. Since then, she has written books about kings, queens, child prodigies, famous authors and ghosts. Her first spooky, suspenseful novel, The Swallow: A Ghost Story, won the IODE Violet Downey Book Award in 2015. The Painting, her second novel, won the Ann Conner Brimer Atlantic Canada Book Award in 2018, and the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award in 2019. The Ghost Road and Footsteps in Bay de Verde won the Bruneau Family Children’s/YA Award in 2020 and 2022. Charis’ collection of reimagined ghost stories, Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland, won the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award in 2022.
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Charis has worked in schools and libraries across Canada, using drama and storytelling to bring her books to life. Her performances of Newfoundland ghost stories have thrilled audiences of all ages in North America, from Florida to Vancouver Island. Over the years, she has encouraged Newfoundland children to collect traditional ghost stories from their communities. She has published two books of these ghost stories, written and illustrated by the students: The Ghosts of Baccalieu and The Ghosts of Southwest Arm. Her books have been translated into Korean and German.
