How to Study Canadian Writers

Canadian literature doesn’t begin and end with Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. Canada has no shortage of great authors. These writers have struggled with figuring out exactly what it is about their work that makes it Canadian. But beyond their cultural heritage, Canadian authors tell us about ourselves through their writings.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Check out the Canadian Authors Association links for Canadian writers. These will give you a comprehensive list of web sites, including names of prize winners. “Books in Canada” is a Toronto publication of book reviews and their database is full-text reviews covering about the last twenty years.

2. Read works by and about Canadian authors. Start with Margaret Atwood’s “Negotiating with the Dead.” Published in 2002, Atwood talks about how she became a writer and what that meant in Canada in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

3. Decide whether you’re interested in the theory or craft of Canadian writing. Two journals, “Essays on Canadian Writing” from the University of Saskatchewan and “Canadian Literature” from the University of British Columbia, feature academic articles on authors and trends in Canadian literature. Look to “Writers Digest” and “The Writer” for articles about how Canadian authors approach their work.

4. Search the ShawGuides Web site for major conferences, especially in Canada and the United States. Indiana University Writers Conference in Bloomington, Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont, are just three conferences that attract prominent authors from all over the world.

5. Search Amazon.com for “Reappraisals: Canadian Writers Series,” published by the University of Ottawa Press since the 1970s, for a scholarly treatment of Canadian literature.