Jane Urquhart, LL.D is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool, gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger. Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General's Literary Award.
Milton James Rhode Acorn, nicknamed The People's Poet by his peers, was a Canadian poet, writer, and playwright.
Margaret Adele Fairley born Margaret Adele Keeling (1885–1968) was a British-born Canadian writer, educator, and political activist. From 1936 until her death, she was a member of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC). She was deported from the USA for her politics and there is a park named for her in Toronto.
Mariposa Folk Festival is a Canadian music festival founded in 1961 in Orillia, Ontario. It was held in Orillia for three years before being banned because of disturbances by festival-goers. After being held in various places in Ontario for a few decades, it returned to Orillia in 2000. Ruth Jones, her husband Dr. Crawford Jones, brother David Major and Pete McGarvey organized the first Mariposa Folk Festival in August 1961. The inaugural event, covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, featured all Canadian performers. The festival grew in popularity, size and rowdiness until the popularity of the 1963 festival, and the lack of sufficient security, led to a backlash from town locals. The city of Orillia secured a court injunction to prevent the festival from continuing in the town limits. The first festival held in the Toronto area, in 1964, was at Maple Leaf Stadium. The subsequent three festivals were held at Innis Lake in Caledon, northwest of the city. In the 1970s it was held on the Toronto Islands before shifting to Harbourfront (Toronto) and Bathurst Street and later Molson Park in Barrie. In 2000, the Mariposa Folk Festival was invited back to Orillia by city councilors Tim Lauer and Don Evans. The festival continues to be held in Orillia. As well as folk music, the festival highlights other aspects of folk culture including dance, crafts, storytelling.
Erika Ritter is a Canadian playwright, essayist, broadcaster and humorist.
Myrtle Alice Cook was a Canadian athlete who won the gold medal in the women's 4 x 100 metres at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
Richard Daley Outram was a Canadian poet. Often regarded as a poet's poet, he wrote eleven commercially published books of poetry in addition to the many collections of his poetry and prose published under the imprint of the Gauntlet Press. In 1999 he won the City of Toronto Book Award for his sequence of poems Benedict Abroad.
Helen Barbara Howard was a Canadian painter, wood-engraver, drafter, bookbinder and designer who produced work consistently throughout her life, from her graduation in 1951 from the Ontario College of Art until her unexpected death in 2002.
Emily Mary Bibbens Warren was a British Canadian artist and illustrator. She worked in ink, watercolour, oil, gouache, and graphite. Her favourite subjects included gardens, landscape, and interiors and exteriors of buildings. She is known for sunlight beaming through stained glass windows.
Marjorie Elliott Wilkins Campbell was a Canadian writer of history and historical fiction. She won two Governor General's Literary Awards for the best works of the year, one of the two 1950 non-fiction awards for The Saskatchewan and the Governor General's Award for Juvenile Fiction in 1954 for The Nor'Westers.
The Toronto Heliconian Club is a non-profit association of women involved in the arts and letters based in Toronto, Ontario. It operates out of Heliconian Hall, a historic building located in the Yorkville area of central Toronto. Founded in 1909, the Club still focuses on its original commitment to women supporting and working in the arts.
The Women's Art Association of Canada (WAAC) is an organization founded in 1887 to promote and support women artists and craftswomen in Canada, including artists in the visual media, performance artists and writers. At one time, it had almost 1,000 members. Although smaller today, it still plays an active role in fundraising and providing scholarships for young artists.
Francis Marion Beynon was a Canadian journalist, feminist and pacifist. She is known for her semi-autobiographical novel Aleta Day (1919).
Agnes Dunbar Fitzgibbon Chamberlin was a Canadian artist living in Ontario.
Helena Coleman was a Canadian poet, music teacher, and writer.
Bertha Mabel "Mabel" Dunham (1881–1957) was a Canadian librarian and author. She was the first trained librarian in the province of Ontario to hold the position of chief librarian and wrote several historical fiction books for both children and adults. Dunham worked at the Kitchener Public Library for 36 years, in addition to teaching library science courses and playing an active role within local history and professional communities.
Norah M. Holland was a Canadian poet, playwright, journalist, and editor. She was a contributor to the Canadian Courier, The Canadian Magazine, Toronto Daily News, and the The Globe. During Holland's travels in Ireland and England in 1904, she stayed with John Butler Yeats, and he drew a sketch of her. Holland died in 1925.
Lilian Leveridge was a British-born Canadian teacher who became a writer, particularly of poetry, later in her career. In addition to six volumes of verse, she contributed articles, poems and short stories to various periodicals. Awards and recognition followed from the Canadian Literature Club of Toronto, Canadian Authors Association, and the McNab Poetry Award. Leveridge died in 1953.
Eve Brodlique Summers was a British-born Canadian/American author and journalist. One of the best-known newspaper women on the Continent, she filled every position from reporter to editor. Yet, she belonged to the group of literary journalists, as by her rhymes and stories for the leading U.S. magazines, she built up a national reputation.
Anne Elizabeth Wilson was a 20th-century American-born Canadian writer of poetry and short stories, which appeared in Canada, England, and the United States. She was also a magazine and book editor. Wilson and her husband, Victor Blochin resided at Silverdale Farm, south of Aurora, Ontario, where their "Happy Woodland" pet cemetery, opened in 1934, was believed to be the first of its kind in Canada. Wilson died in 1946.
