Elyse Friedman

Elyse Friedman born in Toronto, Canada and was raised in North York, Ontario.^[1]

Education and career

Elyse attended and graduated from film school at Sheridan College in Brampton, Ontario. Friedman grew up with her mom and dad, as well as her older sister Robyn, and her younger brother Danny. By grade ten Elyse had dropped out of her junior high in order to spend time with her boyfriend at the time. However, when she was seventeen, Elyse re-enrolled in school and finished the requirements needed for her to graduate with a grade thirteen certificate.^[1] Prior to her debut novel and screenplays, Elyse worked for ten years as a “slide rat”, assistant producer, producer and writer. She also worked the kids channel YTV, and then continued on to the likes of Radio shows such as Brand X and Definitely Not the Opera.^[2] Of her ‘dark decade,’ Elyse says that she “went into another line of work for 10 years, and by the time [she] was done, it was easier to be a writer than a film-maker. It’s because you just do it on your own – you don’t rely on anyone else.”.^[3] Friedman has said that although she gets some of her inspiration for writing from her own personal experiences and family life, she has no particular inspiration for her writings: “If I had to sum up [my character] in one word, I’d say ‘outsiders.’ There’s not one particular source from where I get my inspiration. It comes from different places. I get it from life, and ideas pop into my head. I file them away and sooner or later it’s time to deal with them, whether in screenplay, book, or poem or whatever it happens to be.”^[4] Friedman’s book Then Again shadows the events and happenings of her own life. Her character has a similar job to what Friedman had to start out, and her character also goes through the traumatic experience of losing her mother at a young age.^[1]

Personal life

Elyse Friedman lives in Toronto.

Awards and accomplishments

Elyse Friedman has published one book of short stories, two novels, and a compilation of poems and has written several films or screen plays. Elyse has won the Gold National Magazine Award for fiction and her stories have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies in Canada and the United States.^[4]

Published works

Films and screenplays

• Suddenly Naked, 2001

A comedy about a 40 year old novelist who meets and falls in love with a writer who is talented and much younger. Originally titled Show & Tell, Suddenly Naked appeared on film festival screens in places such as Toronto, Berlin, Vancouver and Hawaii. This movie earned six Genie Award nominations and won an award for best editing.^[4]

• Birds of America, 2008

Novels and short stories

• Then Again, 1999

In Then Again, Friedman “Fashions characters who go to extraordinary lengths in their efforts to escape or recapture the past; as they discover the high price that accompanies the knowledge that neither of these things is possible.” Then Again highlights the “limits of family loyalty and the necessity of choosing to live for oneself when the demand of others becomes intolerable.”^[5] Friedman has said that she wrote this book because she “wanted to talk about the lingering effects on the children of holocaust survivors. There’s a residue that remains and has an effect on children. [She] also wanted to explore the ideas of subjective memory – how different siblings can have different takes on the same environment.” Then Again is a prominent book in bookstores and is published by Random House.^[3]

• Long Story Short, 2004

In Long Story Short, Friedman has put together a collection of short stories that “document the lives of six perverse and eccentric protagonists who share one common characteristic: living lives that have somehow gone off kilter” Long Story Short was published by Anansi.^[2]

• Waking Beauty, 2004
• Then Again: A Novella & Stories, 2007

Poetry

• Know Your Monkey, 2003

References