A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Blaise founded the postgraduate Creative Writing Program at Concordia University. His 2001 biography, Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time, won the Pearson Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize. The Meagre Tarmac was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Blaise lives in San Francisco with his wife and fellow author, Bharati Mukherjee.