Deirdre Macdonald came of age in Toronto during the 1950s and 1960s, in tune with the people and cultural world she portrays in Her Hat in the Ring: Toronto Milliner El Jamon and Her Circle. Her father was an academic and university administrator passionate about Canadian literature and history; her mother was a spirited Scottish war bride with a highly original sense of design and colour. Deirdre embarked on Lily Jamon’s story after she discovered a cache of El Jamon hats at the back of her then 90-year-old mother’s cupboard. 

 

Deirdre holds an Honours BA in English from the University of Toronto, an MA in English from Toronto’s York University, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of King’s College, Halifax, NS. She’s spent time travelling and working in England, has taught high school English in Toronto, and worked as a freelance writer both here and in Kenya, where she lived for six years with her husband and three children. She and her husband now divide their time between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Sugar Loaf, Cape Breton, where the beauty of the land and its people continue to inspire music and song, handcrafting, and the spoken and written word.