Judith McCormack was born outside Chicago, and grew up in Toronto, with brief stops in Montreal and Vancouver. She has several law degrees, which have mostly served to convince her that law is a branch of fiction. Her first short story was nominated for the Journey Prize, and the next three were selected for the Coming Attractions Anthology. Her collection of stories, The Rule of Last Clear Chance, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail. Her work has been published in the Harvard Review, Descant and The Fiddlehead, and one of her stories has been turned into a short film by her twin sister, Naomi McCormack, an award-winning filmmaker. Her short story in the Harvard Review was recorded as a spoken word version by The Drum, and was anthologized in Best Canadian Short Stories 2014. Backspring, her first novel, was shortlisted for the 2016 Amazon First Novel Award. The Singing Forest, her most recent book, was named one of the ten best historical novels of 2021 by the New York Times.