Sandy Pool is the author of Undark: An Oratorio, a luminous poetry collection nominated for the 2013 Trillium Book Award.

Written in seven distinct voices, the book explores the lives of “radium women,” workers who painted glow-in-the-dark numbers on watch dials in the 1930s.

“It is also about time and history,” Sandy notes, “and specifically, a history which erases women.” The unsuspecting dial painters developed terrible medical conditions from radium exposure, including necrosis of the jaw and spontaneous bone fractures.

Sandy, a writer and classically trained theatre artist, holds a degree in Theatre and English from the University of Toronto, as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She is the winner of both the Constance Rooke Scholarship In Creative Writing and the Sharon Drummond Scholarship in Creative Writing.

Sandy also writes opera librettos and has taught writing at Humber College. Her first book of poetry, Exploding Into Night, longlisted for the 2010 ReLit Award, and shortlisted for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Currently, she is a doctoral student in Canadian Literature and Poetics at the University of Calgary and lives in Montreal.

Website: www.nightwoodeditions.com/author/SandyPool
Twitter: @sandypools