
layne beckner
writer. mum. professor. photographer. carb eater.

Hi!
a little about me:
I spent my childhood with my nose in a book. I remember reading at picnics, in the car, late at night until I had a headache.
In my early twenties, my aunt, a librarian, messaged to say our local library was selling off loads of their old books. I bought boxes of the books and discovered my name on every check-out card from years before.
As an adult, my love for stories hasn’t waned, but now I write them too.
I have a master’s in labour studies from McMaster University and a bachelor’s in photojournalism and writing from Western Kentucky University. When I’m not writing, you can find me running around with my three not-so-littles, watering my garden, sipping wine and chatting with my chickens. During my adulting hours, I’m a professor of photography/design and run a media company with my husband.
randoms:
team Petah.
em dash overuser.
introvert.
If I were stuck on a deserted island and could only watch one show for the rest of my life…
I honestly don’t know if I’d choose
The Office or Parks and Rec.
It’s the question that won’t go away.


I write book club fiction about things like class, power/privilege, racism, religion/faith, feminism, the environment, and all sorts of relationships. And of course, sisters. Always sisters.

*some* of my favourite books:
Beartown/Us Against You – Fredrick Backman
Tell the Wolves I’m Home – Carol Rifka Brunt
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
The Push – Ashley Audrain
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
Tiny Beautiful Things – Cheryl Strayed
Eleanor and Park – Rainbow Rowell
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexander Dumas
Educated – Tara Westover
The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
A Complicated Kindness – Miriam Toews
A Woman Is No Man – Etaf Rum
The Office of Historical Corrections – Danielle Evans
a few more of my fave reads:
Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
I’ll Give You The Sun – Jandy Nelson
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
The Paris Wife – Paula Mclain
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Ask Again, Yes – Mary Beth Keane
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Valentine – Elizabeth Wetmore
Anything Is Possible – Elizabeth Strout
The Clay Girl – Heather Tucker

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.”
– Annie Dillard