About the Author

A new book, March 25, 2025 — HOW TO SURVIVE A BEAR ATTACK: A Memoir

THE LAST NEANDERTHAL was published in April 2017 by Little Brown in the US, Doubleday in Canada, and in Italian by Società Editrice Milanese (SEM). It is a bestseller in Canada, was featured in The New York Times, called, “one of the most realistic novels about the twilight of the Neanderthals thus far written,” by archaeologist and paleoanthropologist John Shea, and a finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It sold in eleven territories.

Claire Cameron’s second novel, THE BEAR, was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, sold in ten territories, and is a number 1 bestseller in Canada. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service, which her first novel, THE LINE PAINTER, also won.

She has led canoe trips in Algonquin Park and worked as an instructor for Outward Bound, teaching mountaineering, climbing, and whitewater rafting in Oregon and beyond. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, and she is a monthly contributor to The Globe and Mail. She lives in Toronto.

Related Press 

Life outdoors after a skin cancer diagnosis — a discussion with Matt Galloway on The Current, CBC Radio

How a Skin Cancer Diagnosis Changed My Relationship with the Outdoors — an essay I wrote for Outside Magazine.

My essay in The New Yorker – “Bear” Is About Much More Than Having Sex with a Bear

Neanderthals: They’re Just like Us in The New York Times
10 Women to Watch  from BookPage
Starred review from Publishers Weekly
A Word on Words - Interview with J.T. Ellison on Nashville Public Television
Interview on The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers
The Millions – Life-Long Obsessions: The Millions Interviews Claire Cameron
The Globe and Mail – I’d want to try eating mammoth

More writing