Welcome to Canadian Literature!
Canadian Literature aims to foster a wider academic interest in the Canadian literary field, and publishes a wide range of material from Canadian and international scholars, writers, and poets. Each issue contains a variety of critical articles, an extensive book reviews section, and a selection of original poetry.
www.canlit.ca's Online Exclusives section offers supplementary content like Interviews with Canadian authors and poets, our databases of Canadian scholars, Canadian publishers, and Canadian Literary Magazines/Journals; and Letters & Reflections—a place for commentary that is not published in the print journal.
News
Featured CanLit Poet: Daniel David Moses
Tuesday, November 03rd, 2009
Every couple of weeks, we will be promoting a "Featured Poet" from the CanLit Poets archive on this site and @canadianlit. This week is Daniel David Moses:
Playwright, poet, essayist, and teacher, Daniel David Moses is a Delaware from the Six Nations lands in southern Ontario, Canada. He holds an Honours B. A. in General Fine Arts from York University and an M. F. A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. His plays include his first, Coyote City, a nominee for the 1991 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, The Indian Medicine Shows, a winner of the James Buller Memorial Award for Excellence in Aboriginal Theatre and, his best known, Almighty Voice and His Wife. He is also the author of Delicate Bodies and Sixteen Jesuses, poems, and co-editor of Oxford University Press’ An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English, 3rd Edition, 2005. His most recent publications are Pursued by a Bear, Talks, Monologues and Tales (2005) and Kyotopolis, a play in two acts (2008), both from Exile Editions. His honours include the Harbourfront Festival Prize, a Harold Award, a Chalmers Fellowship and being short-listed for the 2005 Siminovitch Award. He teaches as a Queen’s National Scholar in the Department of Drama at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Visit CanLit Poets for more info.
CanLit Poets wins a Canadian Online Publishing Award
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Canadian Literature's poetry archive, CanLit Poets, won a Canadian Online Publishing Award (presented by Masthead) in the Best Cross Platform category!
George Elliott Clarke, who has been involved with the archive since the very beginning, attended the ceremony to accept the award on our behalf and read a speech:
On behalf of Canadian Literature, I would like to thank all the poets who have generously donated their time to make the archive a success. CanLit Poets draws on the many poems published in Canadian Literature since it was founded in 1959—it is not only moving poetry from print to web, but is also an offshoot from an academic journal designed to educate and inspire young poets.
Canadian Literature is delighted to win an award for online publishing and is excited that we have been able to make our website appealing and useful to a wider audience than university students and researchers. The main drive is to expose high school students to great poetry, no matter where they live in the world, so that they will be inspired to write poetry themselves. Canadian Literature staff member Matthew Gruman deserves credit for having this idea and carrying it through to completion. This award from Masthead will give Canadian Literature inspiration to be more creative with its website.
Film Screenings: The Snow Walker and Fugitive Pieces
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
In cooperation with the Vancouver International Film Festival, we will be presenting The Snow Walker (November 2, 2009 @ 7pm) and Fugitive Pieces (November 4, 2009 @ 7pm) at the VanCity Theatre (1181 Seymour St., Vancouver, BC).
The Snow Walker
A pilot who delivers supplies to tribes in the backwoods of the Canadian north is implored to escort a sick young Inuit woman to a hospital. On the flight back, the plane's engine fail and they crash in the wastelands. Rescuers are unable to locate them and the two are left to struggle for their survival. The ailing woman thus teaches the hot-headed pilot the way to live in these regions.
Fugitive Pieces
Fragments of past and present create a haunting kaleidoscope of words and emotions. Lyrical and complex, Jeremy Podeswa's adaptation of Anne Michael's beloved novel builds into a breathtaking mosaic as fragments of the past and present reveal the inner depths of a writer who can't let go of the ghosts that haunt him.
Athos is directing an archaological dig in Nazi-occupied Poland when he discovers a little boy hiding. After witnessing the massacre of members of his family, seven-year-old Jakob does not know the fate of his beloved sister Bella - a mystery that will haunt him for the rest of his life. As Jakob grows into a man, he becomes progressively more consumed by his family's tragedy and his longing for Bella, coloring his relationships. A truly moving and unforgettable story.
Featured CanLit Poet: Steven Heighton
Thursday, October 08th, 2009
Every couple of weeks, we will be promoting a "Featured Poet" from the CanLit Poets archive on this site and @canadianlit. This week is Alan R. Wilson:
Steven Heighton is the author of the novel Afterlands, which has appeared in six countries, was a New York Times Book Review editors' choice, and was recently optioned for film. He has also published The Shadow Boxer (a Canadian bestseller and a Publishers' Weekly Book of the Year), Flight Paths of the Emperor and The Address Book. His poems and stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including London Review of Books, Poetry, Tin House, The Walrus, Europe, Agni, Poetry London, Brick, and Best English Stories. Heighton has won several awards and has been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Journey Prize, and Britain's W.H. Smith Award.
Visit CanLit Poets for more info.
Canadian Literature 50th Anniversary Gala photos
Wednesday, October 07th, 2009
Photos from our 50th Anniversary Gala are in!
Featured CanLit Poet: Alan R. Wilson
Wednesday, September 02nd, 2009
Every couple of weeks, we will be promoting a "Featured Poet" from the CanLit Poets archive on this site and @canadianlit. This week is Alan R. Wilson:
Alan R. Wilson was born and brought up in New Brunswick and now lives in Victoria, BC. His work has appeared in over 40 journals and anthologies, includingIn Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry (Raincoast) and Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets (Biblioasis). He has written one novel and three volumes of poetry. The most recent, Sky Atlas (Fitzhenry and Whiteside), was shortlisted for the 2009 Atlantic Poetry prize. His novel, Before the Flood (Cormorant) was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, the BC Book Prize for Fiction, and won the 2000 Books in Canada/Chapters First Novel Award. A screenplay based on a chapter was a winner in the Atlantic Film Festival Competition and was produced and aired on CBC and Global. He has recently completed his second novel, Lucifer's Hair, and hopes to see it in print before his daughter starts grade one.
Visit CanLit Poets for more info.
Canadian Literature 50th Anniversary Gala
Wednesday, September 02nd, 2009
In 2009, Canadian Literature marks its 50th year of publication. To celebrate, The University of British Columbia, and its Faculty of Arts, will hold a Canadian Literature Gala September 30 to October 3, 2009. The program includes:
- Distinguished Canadian writers and scholars reading and speaking. Confirmed speakers are Thomas King, Steven Galloway, Roch Carrier, and Aritha van Herk.
- A reception and auction of works of art donated by Canadian writers including Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Dennis Lee, and Joni Mitchel. Visit the auction page for a complete list. Proceeds to support the Canadian Literature 50th Anniversary Tuition Awards for undergraduate students interning at Canadian Literature.
- A two-day conference featuring presentations by distinguished academics and graduate students from Canada and abroad. 35 Canadian literature specialists representing 21 universities across Canada will be presenting 5 minute "interventions" on the future of the field, writing, and academic publishing over the course of the two-day conference. Students, nominated by their own departments, will be selected for 50th anniversary travel awards to enable them to present their research.
- Launch of From a Speaking Place: Writings from the First 50 Years of Canadian Literature, to be published by Ronsdale Press.
- In cooperation with the Vancouver International Film Festival, a mini-festival of films based on Canadian literary works, late October 2009.
- A literary tour of Vancouver.
- To conclude the Gala, a no-host luncheon, with featured speaker W.H. New OC, FRSC, Editor of Canadian Literature, 1977-1995.
Visit the 50th Anniversary Website for more information.
Featured CanLit Poet: Crystal Hurdle
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Every couple of weeks, we will be promoting a "Featured Poet" from the CanLit Poets archive on this site and @canadianlit. This week is Crystal Hurdle:
Crystal Hurdle teaches Creative Writing and English at Capilano University in North Vancouver. In October 2007, Crystal was Guest Poet at the International Sylvia Plath Symposium at the University of Oxford reading from her After Ted & Sylvia: Poems. Crystal's poetry has been published widely in anthologies and journals, including Canadian Literature, Fireweed, The Dalhousie Review, and The Capilano Review, of which she was Fiction Editor, and on whose Board of Directors she currently sits.
Visit CanLit Poets for more info.
Current Issue: Strategic Nationalisms, #200 (Spring 2009)
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
The current issue of Canadian Literature "Strategic Nationalisms," celebrates our 50th anniversary. It features essays by Tony Tremblay, Ellen Rose, Erica Kelly, Janice Fiamengo, Tim McIntyre, Joubert Satyre, and Eileen Lohka; poetry by Russell Thornton, Lolette Kuby, Helen Guri, Richard Harrison, Dave Margoshes, and Neile Graham; and our regular collection of book reviews.
In September 2008, a most extraordinary thing happened in Canada. Culture became the central issue in a federal election campaign, briefly eclipsing discussions of climate change and the economy. It ignited, in the bellicose language of the day, the latest rendition of "Canada's culture war." National attention was sparked by the announcement of 45 million dollars in cuts from the government arts and culture budget. Speaking in Saskatchewan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper clearly miscalculated public opinion on the importance of the link between culture and national identity when he called culture a "niche issue": "You know, I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala, all subsidized by the taxpayers, claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know the subsidies have actually gone up, I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people"(qtd. in O'Malley) … If Harper was trying to tap into what Scott Bakker calls the "low-brow resentment" of culture, he seems to have failed. Instead, he resurrected a longstanding ideological debate about government support for the arts …
—Laura Moss, "Strategic Cultural Nationalism"
Visit the archives for a full Table of Contents, poetry, and links to Book Reviews.
Featured CanLit Poet: David Margoshes
Tuesday, August 04th, 2009
Every couple of weeks, we will be promoting a "Featured Poet" from the CanLit Poets archive on this site and @canadianlit. This week is David Margoshes:
Dave Margoshes is a Regina poet and fiction writer. He's published a dozen books, including three volumes of poetry, the most recent being Purity of Absence, in 2001, from Beach Holme Press. Earlier books were Walking at Brighton (Thistledown) and Northwest Passage (Oberon). A new book of poetry, The Horse Knows the Way, is appearing in fall 2009 from Buschek Books. His last book, Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories, won two prizes at the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Awards, including Book of the Year. He's won a number of other writing awards, including the Stephen Leacock Prize for Poetry and second prize in the League of Canadian Poets' National Poetry Contest. He's a past vice president of the League of Canadian Poets.
Visit CanLit Poets for more info.
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