Lawrence Hill - Personal Life

Personal Life

Hill was born in 1957 in Newmarket, Ontario, the son of American immigrants to Canada — a black father and a white mother. Hill has written in his bestselling memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice of how his parents — social activist Donna Hill and social scientist/public servant Daniel G. Hill — met, married, left the United States the day after they married in 1953 in Washington, D.C., and raised a family in Toronto. Growing up in the 1960s in Don Mills, a predominantly white suburb of Toronto, Hill was very influenced by his parents' human rights work and would go on to explore in his writing themes related to identity and belonging.

Hill earned a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for The Winnipeg Free Press.

Having lived and worked in Baltimore, in Spain and in France, Hill currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with his wife and five children. His brother is singer-songwriter Dan Hill.