JC VILLAMERE knew how to drive a Ski-Doo by age 8, her body is 90 per cent maple syrup and among her prized possessions is a signed 8×10 glossy of Shelagh Rogers. She is the most Canadian woman in the world.

Villamere's first book 'Is Canada Even Real? How a Nation Built on Hobos, Beavers, Weirdos, and Hip-Hop Convinced the World to Beliebe' is a humorous nostalgia trip for Canadians couched in a hipster quiz book and presented in a context that's inviting and accessible to those beyond our borders. It's a fun history lesson, a blast-from-the-past, and a quirky ode to a quirky land. Our repeated faithfulness to the national fable has the rest of the world - and at times, Canadians themselves - asking: Is Canada even real? It's a question that's being asked with increasing frequency as those outside our borders become aware of our waterproof, see-through, mythically maple-scented currency and our improbably hot new prime minister's assertions that Santa lives here. (Rights sold: World, Dundurn, 2016)

Villamere is an alumna of the Banff Centre for the Arts who studied journalism at Carleton University. She has worked as a senior editor at Canadian Living and Hamilton Magazine. Her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Canadian Living, Style at Home, Elle Canada, Flare, The Stone Slide Corrective, Tin Roof Press, Hamilton Magazine, Interiors and more. She's won two National Magazine Awards and her work has been shortlisted for CBC's Canada Writes competition.

Since 2011, she's been blogging about Canadian culture at villamere.com as Villamere: Chief She-Hoser. In 2015, she launched an acclaimed print magazine, Villamere: The Lowbrow Magazine of High-End CanLit. She currently writes about pop music for ET Canada.
  • Hamilton, Ontario
  • JoinedOctober 3, 2013


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