Jane Urquhart, Order of Canada OC is a Canadian novelist and poet born in Geraldton, Ontario. 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.
Austin Ardinel Chesterfield "Tom" Clarke,, was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and short story writer who was based in Toronto, Ontario. Among his notable books are novels such as The Polished Hoe (2002), memoirs including Membering (2015), and two collections of poetry, Where the Sun Shines Best (2013) and In Your Crib (2015).
Christopher Dewdney is a prize-winning Canadian poet and essayist. His poetry reflects his interest in natural history. His book Acquainted with the Night, an investigation into darkness was nominated for both the Charles Taylor Prize and the Governor General's Award.
Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following, but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:
Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth.
Peter John Gzowski, known colloquially as "Mr. Canada", or "Captain Canada", was a Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, most famous for his work on the CBC radio shows This Country in the Morning and then Morningside. His first biographer argued that Gzowski's contribution to Canadian media must be considered in the context of efforts by a generation of Canadian nationalists to understand and express Canada's cultural identity. Gzowski wrote books, hosted television shows, and worked at a number of newspapers and at Maclean's magazine. Gzowski was known for a friendly and warm interviewing style.
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Random House of Canada, a branch of Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
Earle Alfred Birney, OC, FRSC was a distinguished Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honor, for his poetry.
The Journey Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by McClelland and Stewart and the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best short story published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The award was endowed by James A. Michener, who donated the Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel Journey.
Alfred Wellington Purdy, was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet. Purdy's writing career spanned fifty-six years. His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence, in addition to his posthumous works. He has been called the nation's "unofficial poet laureate" and "a national poet in a way that you only find occasionally in the life of a culture."
The Progress of Love is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1986. It won the 1986 Governor General's Award for English Fiction, her third win of that award.
Michael Redhill is an American-born Canadian poet, playwright and novelist. He also writes under the pseudonym Inger Ash Wolfe.
Marjorie May "Maggie" Siggins is a Canadian journalist and writer. She was a recipient of the 1992 Governor General's Award for Literary Merit for her non-fiction work Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm. She was also the recipient of the 1986 Arthur Ellis Award for "Best true crime book" for her work A Canadian Tragedy, about the involvement of former Saskatchewan politician Colin Thatcher in the murder of his wife JoAnn Wilson. She is also noted as the author of a controversial biography of Louis Riel entitled Riel: A Life of Revolution. In Her Own time:A Class Reunion Inspires a Cultural History of Women and Bitter Embrace:White Society's Assault on the Woodland Cree are her last two books. Both Revenge of the Land and A Canadian Tragedy were adapted as television mini-series by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She is also the former chair of the Writers' Union of Canada.
David Bergen is a Canadian novelist. He has published eight novels and one collection of short stories since 1993. His most recent novel, Stranger, was published in 2016.
Elizabeth Grace Hay is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.
Anne Simpson is a Canadian poet, novelist, artist and essayist. She was a recipient of the Griffin Poetry Prize.
Trevor Cole is a Canadian novelist and journalist. He has published four novels; the first two, Norman Bray in the Performance of his Life (2004) and The Fearsome Particles (2006), were nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Journey, a novel by James Michener published in 1989, was expanded from a section originally cut from his large novel Alaska (1988). The book depicts five men, one of whom was an English Lord, journeying in 1897-99 from Great Britain through Canada to Dawson, Yukon, to participate in the Klondike gold rush. According to the novel's afterword, the section was cut from the original book because Alaska already contained a chapter on the Alaskan side of the gold rush. It was decided that chapter could stand on its own as a short novel.
Joan Thomas is a Canadian novelist and book reviewer, whose debut novel Reading By Lightning won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Canada/Caribbean) as well as the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Her second novel, Curiosity was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. Both novels were longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
The New Quarterly is a literary magazine based in Waterloo, Ontario in office space donated by St. Jerome's University.
