Hope Morritt holds her  BA in English from the University of Western Ontario , and in the 1980s, she did post graduate work in Irish literature at the University of Dublin , Eire .

            Morritt was born in Edmonton where, after graduating from Victoria High School , she worked as a reporter at the Edmonton Journal and a few years later took a job as a reporter and women’s page editor at the Edmonton Bulletin.  Then she was hired to work in Whitehorse , Yukon , as secretary for the Canadian Army Engineers and she did part-time announcing and programming for radio station CFWH. 

            Morritt’s husband, Dan Cameron, was transferred by Halliburton Services Ltd., from Edmonton to Sarnia , Ontario in 1960, and shortly after this her first fiction book titled Sarah was published by Robert Hale and Company in  England .

            Hale advertised the book in its October to December 1974 catalogue as follows:

           Sarah Campbell has a psychological attachment to her domineering mother, but when love comes into her life she finds courage to try for a break. . . . But nobody is aware of a terrible secret that Sarah has guarded for years . . .

            Sarah  was sold out in England within a few months of release, and C.E. Campbell, fiction editor of the Evening News, London , said in a review in that paper: “Sarah is a  classic and in  my estimation, the long searched for great  Canadian novel.”

            Her second fiction book, which she co-authored with Norma West Linder, was set in the far north.  Titled Nahanni, Hale’s advertisement in 1975, said:

                   The Nahanni Valley in the Northwest Territories is the setting for this modern, adventure-filled love story.  A legendary  land of myth and mystery, the Nahanni has been called Headless Valley and Valley of the  Damned.  In this savage wilderness, twenty-three year old Melvina Levac finds an exciting and often frightening new life.

            Morritt has received many awards for novels, short stories and plays, and a few are listed here:  In 1958, when she entered a short story in a competition sponsored by the University of Alberta, she won first prize and a writing scholarship to the Banff School of Fine Arts, (now called “The Banff Centre”); in 1972, she won honorable mention for her play Sarah’s Special Room,  with the Ottawa Little Theatre’s annual international competition for playwrights; in 1981, Morritt received a Canada Council award for writing; in 1984, she won first prize in the annual Christmas short story competition offered by the Detroit Magazine; 1^st prize, poetry, Trillium Books, 1988; 1^st prize Winners’ Circle competition offered by the Canadian Authors’ Association, Toronto Branch, 1994;  honorable mention, Winners’ Circle, 1995; 1^st prize for a short story, Amethyst Literary  Review, 2000; 1^st prize poetry, SEEDS COMPETITION, 2000; 1^st prize for a short  story, John Spencer Hill Award, Ottawa, 2001.

            Morritt reads regularly at colleges, schools, libraries.  She has taught creative writing at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, Sarnia , Ontario .  In the 1970s, she was chosen by the Lambton County Roman Catholic Separate   School Board, to launch the creative writing program for gifted students.  In the 1990s, Morritt hosted a TV program series Cover to Cover, introducing Canadian authors.  She is a member of The  Writers’ Union of Canada, and was membership chair for two years for The Union.   She is a member of Women Writing the West in the U.S.A. , and is also a member of WIT (Writers in Transition) in Sarnia .