Women's Writing in Canada

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

• Preface AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Imag(in)ing the National Terrain from the Mid-twentieth Century to the SesquicentennialApproaching National LiteratureWomen in the Linked Roles of Reading and WritingThe Commissions: From Massey to Truth and ReconciliationFrom Total Refusal and the Quiet Revolution to Cultural AccommodationNew Images of Movement and DiversityFiction Prospects at Mid-CenturyWrestling with the Strictures of Marriage and FamilyRevolutionary Talents and ExperimentsFlowering Careers in the SixtiesTrajectories of Celebrity: Munro and AtwoodThe Tangle of Domesticity and IndependenceRhizomes of Sexuality, Nation, Race, and EthnicityExtensions in 2017Film  Original ScreenplaysAdaptations of Women’s Writing in CanadaDocumentariesPoetryJaques, Livesay, Waddington, and Page: "fired in the kiln of endurance"P.K. Page: Onlooker and ParticipantWilkinson, 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"MusicFolk Singers Reclaiming TraditionsPunk, Pop, and CountryAdult Contemporary StylingDrama  Ringwood: Canadian Drama’s ForemotherJoudry, Hendry, and Simons: Examining EmotionsPollock and Bolt: Re-viewing History and Power PoliticsSharon Pollock: "meaning through the making of theatre"Ritter, Glass, Clark, and Lill: Enacting VulnerabilitiesThompson and MacDonald: Performing Marginalization and Shape-ShiftingJudith Thompson: "through the looking glass, darkly"Gale, Sears, Mojica, Cheechoo, Nolan, and Clements: Recording "Documemories"MacLeod, Moscovitch, and Chatterton: Exploring ImpassesWriting for Children Fiction about Children and Young AdultsOther Times and Space of FantasyIllustrated NarrativesNon-fiction Memoirists and AutobiographersCommentators on Our WorldAdvisors and ObserversConclusion Timeline Notes Works CitedCreditsIndex

"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)