Claire is a writer, story editor and producer.
Her first novel, At Last Count, was released by Invisible Publishing in June, 2022. It’s a coming-of-age tale for adult readers about Paisley Ratchford, a birder living with OCD who is forced to confront sudden change and eviction from her Toronto apartment to make way for condos. The only person who can help Paisley reclaim her homestead on Amherst Island is Garnet, her childhood nemesis and secret crush. On Dec 2, the book was named one of the Globe and Mail’s Globe 100: The Best Books of 2022. It was also named a summer reads pick by Toronto Star, a CanLit book club pick by Zoomer magazine, an Editors’ Pick by 49th Shelf, and has been featured on CBC’s Ontario Morning, Global TV, Mix 97, Amherst Island Radio, in the Kingston-Whig Standard, The Peterborough Examiner, and elsewhere. In October, Claire was invited to talk about the book at the Vancouver Writers Fest along with writers Meira Cook and Elif Batuman. She has been awarded Canada Media Fund early development funding to turn the book into a one-hour drama, and is currently pitching the show to industry partners. The book was developed with funding from the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.
Claire has written several movies: Falling For Look Lodge (Neshama, Marvista/Hallmark); the story for An Ice Wine Christmas (Cineflix/Lifetime); and Cupids on Beacon Street (Incendo/City TV). Claire story edited the award-winning features Truckstop Bloodsuckers and Picture Day.
TV credits include Supervising Producer of Make It Pop for Nickelodeon/YTV; writer/ESE on Little Mosque on the Prairie (CBC/Hulu); writer on Degrassi, The Next Generation for CTV/Teen Nick (for which Claire earned The Alliance for Children and Television Award for Excellence); head writer/producer for The Smart Woman Survival Guide (W/Cosmo TV); and writer/ESE on Wingin’ It for Family/Disney XD/BBC (earning Claire a 2014 Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Writing, Children’s/Youth). She has written or story edited on many other shows for networks such as Nickelodeon, BBC, CBC, NBC Universal Kids, PBS, Family, YTV, Youku, RAI, Gulli, and TVO.
For digital-first, Claire was Executive Producer for ZARQA, a comedy for CBC Gem created by Zarqa Nawaz, and is an Executive Producer for an interview series called The Knitting Pilgrim Talks.
Claire co-wrote the YA non-fiction The Gymnastics Book: A Young Performer’s Guide to Gymnastics, currently in its third edition with Firefly. She has also written multiple personal pieces for the Globe and Mail, and has had a commentary broadcast on CBC Radio.
Supported by the Canada Council and the Toronto Arts Council, Claire co-wrote The Knitting Pilgrim for the theatre with Kirk Dunn, which has toured for over 50 shows.
Claire trained as an actor at York university’s Theatre Performance programme. She later attended the Canadian Film Centre as a Writer Resident. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Kirk Dunn. They have two children, Findley and Emmett.
