CanLit Students Hear it Straight From the Source Literature Comes Alive in York U. English Course: Canadian Writers in Person

TORONTO, September 23, 1999 -- York University English Prof. John Unrau has developed an innovative English course entitled Canadian Writers in Person which gives 75 students (and the public) an opportunity to hear 12 eminent Canadian writers read their work and share their insights in sessions running from September 1999 through to March 2000.

The series, which is sponsored by York's Atkinson College, with the support of the Canadian Council, the Writers' Union of Canada and a dozen other benefactors, includes such Canadian literary luminaries as: Wayson Choy, Rudy Wiebe, Patrick Lane, Lee Maracle, Mary Elizabeth Grace, Barbara Gowdy, Susan Swan, Leon Rooke, Di Brandt, Barry Callaghan, Rosemary Sullivan and Richard Teleky. It opens with a special reading of the work of renowned Canadian poet Al Purdy by a number of his friends. (Purdy, who was originally scheduled to read at the series, is unable to attend.)

"The aim of the course is to introduce students to some of the best contemporary Canadian fiction and poetry, and to encourage them to respond to the literature in a thoughtful way," said Unrau. "Hearing the authors read their words will add a dimension to the experience that is unavailable from the printed page alone."

The following public readings will held Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. in Stedman Lecture hall "D" on York's Keele campus:

Friends of Al Purdy reading: selected poems, Sept. 23
Acting dean of York University's Faculty of Graduate Studies John Lennox, U of T Prof. and author Sam Solecki, and award-winning poet and biographer Rosemary Sullivan will read from Al Purdy's work including Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets: selected poems, (Harbour, 1997).

Purdy, winner of numerous awards, including two Governor-General's Awards and the Order of Canada, has published more than 30 books of poetry, a novel, A Splinter in the Heart, two volumes of memoirs, and four books of correspondence including Margaret Laurence - Al Purdy: A Friendship in Letters, (edited by John Lennox).

Wayson Choy reading: The Jade Peony (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995), Oct. 7
Choy, who grew up in Vancouver's Chinatown, teaches English at Humber College in Toronto. His stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. Choy won the Trillium Book Award for The Jade Peony in 1995. A sequel will be published next year by Doubleday, and Choy's memoirs, Paper Shadows, are due out this autumn.

Rudy Wiebe reading: A Discovery of Strangers (Vintage, 1995), Nov. 4
Wiebe joined the English department at the University of Alberta in 1967, and has been Professor Emeritus since 1992. He has written eight novels, including Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), The Blue Mountains of China (1970), The Temptations of Big Bear (1973), and A Discovery of Strangers (1995). The latter two won Governor-General's Awards. Wiebe has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies of short stories. His latest book is Stolen Life: the Journey of a Cree Woman (1998).

Patrick Lane reading: Mortal Remains (Exile Editions, 1991), Nov. 18
Lane has worked as a miner, logger and teacher. He has been writer-in-residence at the universities of Ottawa, Manitoba and Alberta. His books of poetry include Separations (1969), Passing into Storm (1973), Albino Pheasants (1977) and Poems New and Selected (1979), which won the Governor-General's Award. More recent are Winter (1990), Mortal Remains (1991), Too Spare, Too Fierce (1995), and Selected Poems: 1977-1997. A tribute to Lane, Because You Loved Being A Stranger: 55 Poets Celebrate Patrick Lane (ed. Susan Musgrave), was published in 1994.

Lee Maracle reading: Ravensong (Press Gang, 1993), Dec. 2
Maracle is one of Canada's most influential First Nations writers. Her memoir, Bobbie Lee: Indian Rebel (1975; rev. 1990) is an essential document on contemporary Native issues. Her book of essays, I Am Woman (1988), presents a remorseless exposÈ of the contemporary state of Native women. Her publications include the novels Sundogs (1991) and Ravensong (Press Gang, 1993), and a collection of stories, Sojourner's Truth and Other Stories (1990). She has co-edited Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures (1990), and We Get Our Living Like Milk From The Land (1993). Her latest novel Windsong, is due out in 2000.

Mary Elizabeth Grace reading: Bootlegging Apples on the Road to Redemption, Dec. 9
Grace is the co-founder of a multicultural, four-poet collective which published Crossroads Cant (ed. Joe Blades, 1997). Her poems have appeared in three anthologies, Mad Angels and Amphetamines (1994), The Last Word (1995) and The Eramosa Anthology (1996). Her first solo collection, Bootlegging Apples on the Road to Redemption (Insomniac Press, 1996), was accompanied by a CD recording.

Barbara Gowdy reading: The White Bone (Harper, 1998), Jan. 13
Gowdy studied theatre arts at York University, and has worked in literary publishing. The Rabbit and the Hare, a book of stories and poems, appeared in 1982, and a historical novel, Through the Green Valley, in 1988. A chapter from her second novel, Falling Angels, was selected by Margaret Atwood for Best American Short Stories: 1989. The title story of We So Seldom Look on Love (1992) was adapted as a feature film, Kissed. Gowdy's third novel, Mister Sandman (1995) was nominated for the Trillium and Governor-General's Awards. Her latest novel The White Bone (Harper, 1998) has received critical acclaim.

Susan Swan reading: The Wives of Bath (Knopf, 1993), Jan. 27
Swan, novelist, York University professor and Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies chair, has written three novels, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World (1983) which was shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award, The Last of the Golden Girls (1989), and The Wives of Bath (1993), as well as two collections of short stories, Unfit for Paradise (1982), and Stupid Boys are Good to Relax With (1996). Her current inspiration, Making Up the Past: The Archeology of Fiction, a Millennial Wisdom Symposium, will assemble an impressive cast of luminaries, featuring twenty celebrated Canadian novelists, historians and archeologists who will look at what the past has taught us, and how these lessons can help guide us in the new century. The symposium runs from October 1999 through April 2000.

Leon Rooke reading: Who Goes There (Exile Editions, 1998), Feb. 10
Rooke has taught English and creative writing at universities in the U.S. and Canada. Among his novels are Vault (1973), Fat Woman (1980), The Magician in Love (1981), Shakespeare's Dog (1983), winner of the Governor General's Award, and A Good Baby (1989). He has also published a dozen books of short stories, including The Birth Control King of the Upper Volta (1982), Sing Me No Love Songs and I'll Say You No Prayers: Selected Stories (1984) and Who Do You Love? (1992). Who Goes There was published by Exile Editions in 1998.

Di Brandt reading: questions I asked my mother (Turnstone Press, 1987), Feb. 24
Brandt, who grew up in a Mennonite farming village in Winkler, Manitoba, holds a Bachelor of Theology, and a doctorate in English. She was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta in 1995-96. She has won numerous awards including the National Poetry Award (1996) and the Manitoba Book of the Year award (1990). Her books of poetry include: questions I asked my mother (1987), Agnes in the sky (1990), mother, not mother (1992) and Jerusalem, beloved (1995). She is currently adapting questions I asked my mother as a one-actor play.

Barry Callaghan reading: A Kiss is Still a Kiss (Little, Brown, 1995), Mar. 9
Callaghan has been a CBC reporter and producer, and literary editor of the Toronto Telegram. He teaches at York University's Atkinson College, where he founded the journal Exile and Exile Editions. His books include: The Hogg Poems and Drawings (1978), The Black Queen Stories (1982), Stone Blind Love (1987), The Way the Angel Spreads Her Wings (1989), When Things Get Worst (1993) A Kiss Is Still A Kiss (1995) and Barrelhouse Kings (McArthur, 1998). He shared the Harbourfront Literary Prize with Margaret Atwood in 1986 and received the W.O. Mitchell Award in 1998.

Rosemary Sullivan reading: Granada Notebook (Black Moss Press, due out early 2000), Mar. 23
Sullivan, who attended McGill University and the University of Sussex, has taught at the universities of Dijon, Bordeaux, Victoria, and Toronto, where she is a professor of English. A critic, editor, poet and biographer, she was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1992. She has published two volumes of poetry, The Space a Name Makes (1986), winner of the Gerald Lampert Award, and Blue Panic (1991). She has written three biographies: By Heart: Elizabeth Smart: A Life (1991), Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995), winner of the Governor General's Award, and The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out (1998).

Richard Teleky reading: The Paris Years of Rosie Kamin (Steerforth Press, 1998), Mar. 30
Teleky, an accomplished writer and editor, is a humanities professor and teacher in York's Creative Writing Program. He has published Hungarian Rhapsodies: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Culture (1997), has co-edited with Marie-Claire Blais The Oxford Book of French-Canadian Short Stories (Oxford University Press, 1983), and a collection of short stories Goodnight, Sweetheart and Other Stories (1993). His new novel The Paris Years of Rosie Kamin (1998) has received very favourable reviews.

The readings are free; all welcome.

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For more information please contact:

Prof. John Unrau
English Dept., Atkinson College
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 33893
junrau@yorku.ca

Diane Stadnicki
Atkinson Master's Office
York University
(416) 736-5870
dianes@yorku.ca

Ken Turriff
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/093/99