Raymond Beauchemin

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Raymond Beauchemin was born in western Massachusetts and worked at newspapers in Holyoke, Hartford and Boston after receiving his bachelor of arts in English and journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

He moved to Montreal in 1990 to pursue his master’s in English and creative writing from Concordia University. Beauchemin’s first books were anthologies he edited: “32 Degrees,” a collection of master’s theses excerpts from Concordia’s writing program; “The Urban Wanderers Reader,” highlights from the highly successful public reading series he ran in Montreal with his wife, the writer Denise Roig. They also collaborated on the anthology “Future Tense: New English Fiction from Quebec,” published in 1997 by Véhicule Press.

Throughout this time, Beauchemin worked as a copy editor for the Montreal Gazette and became foreign editor there in 1997. In January 2008, he moved to Abu Dhabi where he joined the staff of The National, the first English-language newspaper in the United Arab Emirates capital, where he worked as deputy and then acting foreign editor. He left the paper in August 2011.

Beauchemin’s first novel, “Everything I Own,” was published by Guernica Editions in October 2011. His latest collection of fiction, "The Emptiest Quarter," published in 2023 by Signature Editions, was a trio of novellas set in the U.A.E. He is seeking a publisher for two new works, "Wish I Didn't Know Now" (short fictions) and "What I Didn't Know Then" (fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama). Lately, he is exploring expression in drama with the plays "What We Talk About When We Talk About Trump" and "3 Hours and 10 Minutes."

Much of the work is an exploration of identity, whether it's boys wondering what lay in the world of manhood, men wondering how it is they got there, and the women guiding those boys and men or affected by them.

He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

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