[1][2] She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories.

Her first novel, The Whirlpool (published 1986), gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award).

[3] Urquhart was born June 21, 1949, in Little Longlac, a small mining town in northern Ontario.

Her mother's Irish ancestors were immigrants who arrived in Canada in the mid nineteenth century during the Great Famine.

[4] Following her semester in junior college, Urquhart went to the University of Guelph and earned a BA in 1971 in English literature.

Urquhart worked as an assistant to the information officer for the Royal Canadian Navy while Keele was still in school.

"I think the fact that Paul died when he did, when we were both so young, allowed me to remember what it was like to experience such a devastating loss early in life, as my characters do in this book," she explains.

Urquhart also owned an Irish-style cottage in McGillicuddy Reeks from 1996 to 2013 which she used as a writing retreat and an occasional home.

The cottage, on the verge of Lake Ontario, was the place she spent many summer vacations while growing up.

Urquhart is the author of seven internationally acclaimed novels including: The Whirlpool (entitled Niagara in France), the first Canadian book to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur livre etranger (Best Foreign Book Award);[12] Changing Heaven; Away, winner of the Trillium Award and a finalist for the prestigious International Dublin Literary Award; The Underpainter, winner of the Governor General's Award and a finalist for the Rogers Communications Writers' Trust Fiction Prize; The Stone Carvers, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award, and long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2001; A Map of Glass, a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, and Sanctuary Line, a finalist for the Giller Prize.

Her books have been published in many countries, including Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, Australia, and The United States, and have been translated into several languages.