Fiona Alison Duncan is a Canadian–American writer, artist, curator, and organizer.[1][2] Duncan's first novel, Exquisite Mariposa, was awarded a 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction and long-listed for The Golden Poppy Book Award in 2019.[3][4] Duncan is the founder of Hard to Read, a literary social practice on sex, love, and communication, and its spin-off, Pillow Talk.[5][6] She has curated numerous international contemporary art exhibitions including Pippa Garner's first institutional exhibition in Europe at the Kunstverein München in Munich.[7][8][9] The Pippa Garner exhibit traveled to New York and was shown at White Columns gallery in 2023.[10]

Fiona Alison Duncan
BornLondon, Ontario, Canada
Occupation
  • Writer
  • artist
  • curator
  • organizer
NationalityCanadian-American
Notable awardsLambda Literary Award for Bisexual Literature (2020)

Early life edit

Duncan was born in London, Ontario.[11] She later moved to Los Angeles and then to New York.

Work edit

Duncan has published fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and poetry in numerous publications including Vogue, Artforum, New York Magazine (where she authored the viral article on normcore style), PIN-UP, Spike, Texte zur Kunst, and The White Review.

She is the founder of Hard to Read, a literary social practice of live events with media broadcasts, bookselling, publishing, and fine art exhibitions catered to women and queer history, as well as Hard To Read's softer literary spin-off, Pillow Talk.[12]

In 2019, Duncan published her first novel, titled Exquisite Mariposa.[13][14] The novel is set in Los Angeles and is a phenomenological journey at the end of a narrator's twenties. The book follows the spiraling out of social media and other Web2.0 technology, friendship, astrology, psychedelics, work, fame, and fortune. The novel won the 2020 LAMBDA Literary Prize for Bisexual Fiction.

Duncan was a recipient of a 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and a 2022 Canadian Women Artists’ Awards.[15] Both awards were used to co-curate artist Pippa Garner's first institutional exhibition in Europe at the Kunstverein München in Munich, Kunsthalle Zürich in Switzerland and the Frac Lorraine in Metz, France.[16] Duncan announced that she has begun working closely with the artist to write her biography.

Awards and honours edit

Publications edit

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ "Fiona Alison Duncan – Grantees – Arts Writers Grant". www.artswriters.org. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  2. ^ "Fiona Alison Duncan | Contributors | Gagosian Quarterly". gagosian.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  3. ^ ""I want a full refund."". www.bookforum.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  4. ^ Block, Elizabeth (2019-11-06). "Fiona Alison Duncan's Exquisite Mariposa". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  5. ^ "At Hard to Read, Everybody's A Writer and Everybody's A Reader". Literary Hub. 2019-02-27. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  6. ^ "Exquisite Mariposa: Fiona Alison Duncan with Jamieson Webster (SEAPORT)". McNally Jackson Books. 2019-09-14. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  7. ^ "Fiona Duncan introduces the 'Hard to Read' monthly lit series with a poem by Alicia Novella Vasquez | atractivoquenobello". www.aqnb.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  8. ^ "Fiona Alison Duncan". www.highsnobiety.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  9. ^ "Pippa Garner – Exhibitions – Kunsthalle Zürich". www.kunsthallezurich.ch. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  10. ^ "Pippa Garner". White Columns. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
  11. ^ "Fiona Alison Duncan, Maud Madsen, and Maryam Mir Receive 2022 Canadian Women Artists' Awards – NYFA". NYFA. 2022-11-16. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  12. ^ "Hard to Read, organized by Fiona Alison Duncan, 6PM (5:30 doors) | Exhibitions | Bridget Donahue". www.bridgetdonahue.nyc. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  13. ^ "On experimenting with togetherness". thecreativeindependent.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  14. ^ EXQUISITE MARIPOSA | Kirkus Reviews.
  15. ^ "The Boldly Queer, Proudly Off-Kilter World of Pippa Garner". Vogue. 2022-10-05. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  16. ^ "PORTFOLIO: PIPPA GARNER". Artforum. Vol. 61, no. 2. October 2022. ISSN 0004-3532. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
  17. ^ "Fiona Alison Duncan, Maud Madsen, and Maryam Mir Receive 2022 Canadian Women Artists' Awards – NYFA". NYFA. New York Foundation for the Arts. 16 November 2022. Retrieved 22 February 2023.