Brown, Justine 1965–

PERSONAL: Born July 13, 1965, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; daughter of Montgomery (a musician) and Joan (a writer; maiden name, Haggerty) Brown. Ethnicity: "Irish/Scottish." Education: University of British Columbia, B.A., 1988; University of Toronto, M.A., 1992. Politics: "Neither left nor right." Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home—27-2625 Hemlock St., Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 2V6, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Langara College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, instructor in English, 1997–.

WRITINGS:

All Possible Worlds: Utopian Experiments in British Columbia (nonfiction), New Star Books (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1995.

Hollywood Utopia (nonfiction), New Star Books (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel set in "a somewhat enchanted version of 1970s British Columbia."

SIDELIGHTS: Justine Brown told CA: "My two books are part of a 'mission' to restore what I see as the lost dimension of the word utopia, a word that was coined by Sir Thomas More in the sixteenth century. It is derived from two Greek words: one meaning 'a good place' (no surprise there), and the other meaning 'no place,' or nowhere. I want to enhance that second meaning, which suggests that utopia is located in the human imagination, and thus more connected to works of fantasy describing enchanted lands, such as Wonderland, Never Never Land, Oz, Narnia, and Middle Earth, than to any literal-minded project to make a perfect society in this world."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Alberta Report, January 29, 1996, review of All Possible Worlds: Utopian Experiments in British Columbia, p. 37.