Women's Writing in Canada

by Patricia Demers

Overview

Spanning the period from the Massey Commission to the present and reflecting on the media of print, film, and song, this study attends to the burgeoning energy of women writers across genres. It explores how their work interprets our national story. The questioning, disruptive feminist practice of their fiction, filmmaking, poetry, song-writing, drama, and non-fiction reveals the tensions of colonial society at the same time as it transforms cultural life in Canada.

Women’s Writing in Canada resurrects foremothers who were active before and after the mid-century – Ethel Wilson, Gabrielle Roy, Gwen Pharis Ringwood, Dorothy Livesay, and P.K. Page – as well as such forgotten writers as Grace Irwin, Patricia Blondal, and Edna Jaques. Its breadth extends to the contemporary voices and influences of novelists Tracey Lindberg and Heather O’Neill, poets Marilyn Dumont and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, playwrights Hannah Moscovitch and Anna Chatterton, and filmmakers Sarah Polley and Mina Shum. Writing for children as well as memoirs, autobiographies, comic books, and cookbooks illustrate the wide and impressive range of women’s talents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487534257
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	08/22/2019
Series:	Women's Writing in English
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	887 KB

About the Author

Patricia Demers is a distinguished university professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Imag(in)ing the National Terrain from the Mid-twentieth Century to the Sesquicentennial

Approaching National Literature
Women in the Linked Roles of Reading and Writing
The Commissions: From Massey to Truth and Reconciliation
From Total Refusal and the Quiet Revolution to Cultural Accommodation
New Images of Movement and Diversity

Fiction

Prospects at Mid-Century
Wrestling with the Strictures of Marriage and Family
Revolutionary Talents and Experiments
Flowering Careers in the Sixties
Trajectories of Celebrity: Munro and Atwood
The Tangle of Domesticity and Independence
Rhizomes of Sexuality, Nation, Race, and Ethnicity
Extensions in 2017

Film 

Original Screenplays
Adaptations of Women’s Writing in Canada
Documentaries

Poetry

Jaques, Livesay, Waddington, and Page: "fired in the kiln of endurance"
P.K. Page: Onlooker and Participant
Wilkinson, Brewster, Avison, and Macpherson: "clearing the hurdles of sleep"
MacEwen and Atwood: "the slow striptease of our concepts"
Webb, Lowther, Marlatt, and Brossard: "the way any of us are tangled in the past"
Tostevin, Brand, Halfe, and Dumont: "their fragile, fragile symmetries of gain and loss"
Crozier, Moure, Zwicky, Carson, Michaels, Bolster, and Shraya: "the truth likes to hide out in the open"
Karen Solie: "poetic hipster"

Music

Folk Singers Reclaiming Traditions
Punk, Pop, and Country
Adult Contemporary Styling

Drama 

Ringwood: Canadian Drama’s Foremother
Joudry, Hendry, and Simons: Examining Emotions
Pollock and Bolt: Re-viewing History and Power Politics
Sharon Pollock: "meaning through the making of theatre"
Ritter, Glass, Clark, and Lill: Enacting Vulnerabilities
Thompson and MacDonald: Performing Marginalization and Shape-Shifting
Judith Thompson: "through the looking glass, darkly"
Gale, Sears, Mojica, Cheechoo, Nolan, and Clements: Recording "Documemories"
MacLeod, Moscovitch, and Chatterton: Exploring Impasses

Writing for Children

Fiction about Children and Young Adults
Other Times and Space of Fantasy
Illustrated Narratives

Non-fiction

Memoirists and Autobiographers
Commentators on Our World
Advisors and Observers

Conclusion

Timeline
Notes
Works Cited
Credits
Index

What People are Saying About This

Christl Verduyn

“Showcasing the sustained and significant contribution of women writers to the development of Canadian and Québécois cultural and national identity from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, Women's Writing in Canada presents an overview and sampling of a substantial body of work. Featuring novels, short stories, poetry, drama, autobiography, memoir, writing for children, journalism, songwriting, filmmaking, and cookbooks, this book provides a useful 'overview picture' of Canadian women's writing during the important post-war period of the country's cultural development.”

Linda Morra

“In view of recent political and cultural transformations related to women, both in Canada and abroad, this book is a highly relevant and timely contribution. Women's Writing in Canada offers a comprehensive assessment of women's cultural activity in Canada in the latter half of the twentieth century, and highlights their impressive accomplishments in several cultural fields.”

Linda Vecchi

'In this clearly written book, Patricia Demers provides an informative analysis of how early modern women writers contributed to the structure of the period's world of thought and demonstrates a wide breadth of scholarship in the area. Demers writes with energy and vitality, and the large historical range she surveys provides coverage not always seen in studies of this kind. Students being introduced to the field will find in this book a wealth of valuable information and clear, direct analysis while more experienced scholars will appreciate the opportunity of finding references to less familiar authors and forms of writing.'

Marie H. Loughlin

'With this new work, Patricia Demers offers exciting insights into the connections between well-known women writers of the early modern period, and those less well known. For the student, it opens up the world of early modern women's writing, and for the specialist, it offers numerous fresh and provocative ideas about individual women's texts, as well as a judicious assessment of the present state of contemporary scholarship. Particularly excellent are the careful and nuanced readings of the rhetoric of women's defences and the treatment of the social, political, and gendered anxieties of both male-authored attacks on, and defences of, women.'

Editorial Reviews

"Patricia Demers, an established scholar of early modern literature and gender, has turned more recently to an extensive examination of gender and national literature with Women’s Writing in Canada, an engaging account of mid-twentieth-century and contemporary writing in Canada, with some nods to pre-1950s women in the field."

—Stephen Cain, York University, The Canadian Historical Review

"With impressive critical acuity and obvious enthusiasm, Patricia Demers has a range of Canadian female artists in print, film, and music, each contributing to the national story. Non-Canadians interested in the cultural field will be richly informed."

—Patricia Keeney, York University, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature

"Showcasing the sustained and significant contribution of women writers to the development of Canadian and Québécois cultural and national identity from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, Women’s Writing in Canada presents an overview and sampling of a substantial body of work. Featuring novels, short stories, poetry, drama, autobiography, memoir, writing for children, journalism, songwriting, filmmaking, and cookbooks, this book provides a useful ‘overview picture’ of Canadian women’s writing during the important post-war period of the country’s cultural development."

—Christl Verduyn, Department of English and Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University
"In view of recent political and cultural transformations related to women, both in Canada and abroad, this book is a highly relevant and timely contribution. Women’s Writing in Canada offers a comprehensive assessment of women’s cultural activity in Canada in the latter half of the twentieth century, and highlights their impressive accomplishments in several cultural fields."—Linda Morra, Department of English, Bishop's University

From the Publisher

"Patricia Demers, an established scholar of early modern literature and gender, has turned more recently to an extensive examination of gender and national literature with Women's Writing in Canada, an engaging account of mid-twentieth-century and contemporary writing in Canada, with some nods to pre-1950s women in the field."

The Canadian Historical Review - Stephen Cain

"With impressive critical acuity and obvious enthusiasm, Patricia Demers has a range of Canadian female artists in print, film, and music, each contributing to the national story. Non-Canadians interested in the cultural field will be richly informed."

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature - Patricia Keeney