Canadian author and screenwriter James DeFelice was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1937. He has lived in Edmonton, Alberta, since 1969. Biographical information available in Who's who in Canadian literature, 1992-93, p. 87.
Canadian journalist and author Kenneth McGoogan was born in 1947 and raised in Montreal, Quebec. Educated at Sir George Williams University, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (Bachelor of Applied Arts in Journalism, 1974), and University of British Columbia (Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, 1976). Taught freshman English grammar, composition and literature at U.B.C. in 1976, and grades 3-9 French at the International School of Tanganyika, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1977. Accumulated more than 20 years experience at three newspapers: Toronto Star, Montreal Star and Calgary Herald as general assignment reporter, copy editor, assistant entertainment editor, book review editor and columnist, and literary editor. Published in various Canadian periodicals as a freelance journalist. Author of seven books: three novels; a non-fiction book exploring the politics of Canadian literary culture; three biographies focusing on Northern explorers (John Rae, Samuel Hearne and Jane Franklin); and a biography of Catriona Le May Doan co-authored with the Olympic speedskater. Winner of many awards including the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Canadian Authors' Association History Award, the Grant MacEwan Author's Award and the Pierre Berton Award.
Canadian music educator, administrator and writer; internationally recognized authority on Kodály method. Lois Choksy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 1928. Came to Canada in 1970. Biographical information available in Encyclopedia of music in Canada. 2nd ed., p. 263.
Canadian poet and educator Robert Hilles was born in Kenora, Ontario, on November 13, 1951. Biographical information available in Contemporary authors, v. 165, p. 159-160, and The Oxford companion to Canadian literature, 2nd ed., p. 533.
Stanley Louis Dragland, literary critic, editor, novelist, poet (b Calgary, AB 2 Dec 1942). Born and raised in Calgary, Stan Dragland studied at the University of Alberta, where he received a BA and MA. He earned a PhD from Queen's University in 1970. He has taught at the University of Alberta, The Grammar School, Sudbury, Suffolk (England), the University of Western Ontario and the Banff Centre Writing Studio. While a professor at the University of Western Ontario, Stan Dragland published a number of revealing critical studies that explore how the racial politics of Duncan Campbell SCOTT'S sympathetic "Indian poetry" relate to Scott's role as the deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs. Retired to St. John's, Nfld. in 1999, Stan Dragland's extensive work creating, publishing, critiquing and teaching Canadian writing has made him an influential figure in Canadian letters.
Canadian author, historian and University professor, Ulrich Franz Josef (Frank) Eyck was born in Berlin, Germany, on July 13, 1921 and died on December 28, 2004 in Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Eyck was born into an educated upper middle class German Jewish Family. He was educated in Berlin and London, England. In 1935, the Nazi’s persecution of Jews, forced Dr. Eyck to emigrate to England. During the Second World War, Dr. Eyck, then known as Frank Alexander, was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. He took up an offer to serve in the British Army from 1940-1946 and was a member of the information control unit that helped establish a democratic press in northern Germany.
After the war, he studied modern history at Worcester College, Oxford, 1946-1949. He worked as a journalist with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), London, from 1949-1956. At the BBC, he edited the weekly German language programme, Hier Spricht London. Later he compiled news from abroad. From 1956-1968, he was a research fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford. Dr. Eyck taught history at Liverpool and Exeter University, 1958-1968, and the University of Calgary, 1968-1987. In 1972 he was made a fellow of the prestigious Royal Historical Council Fellowship. From 1974 to 1979 he was ViceChairman of the Council of the Inter-University Centre of Post-Graduate Studies in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia and in 1982, he was visiting professor at the University of Wűrzburg, Germany. He was also associated with the New York based Leo Baeck Institute, devoted to the history and culture of German speaking Jews.
A respected scholar, Dr. Eyck was the author of several books on British and German history including the Frankfurt Parliament : 1848 -1849; The Prince Consort: A Political Biography; and Politics and Religion and Politics in German History. Dr. Eyck also edited the book The Revolutions of 1848-49. Dr. Eyck wrote a memoir A Historian’s Pilgrimage: Memoirs and Reflections which his wife Rosemarie Eyck completed and published after his death.
Dr. Eyck also wrote the authoritative biography of George Peabody Gooch (G.P. Gooch: A Study in History) a noted British historian, Liberal politician and editor of the British Documents on the Origins of the Great War as well as the founder and editor of the journal the Contemporary Review which figured prominently in the debate about British foreign policy before, during and after WWI and II. Gooch was a colleague of Eyck’s father, also a historian, politician and lawyer and an ardent supporter of the Eyck family and other refugees from Nazi Germany.
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Christine van der Mark attended Normal School and spent five years teaching in rural Alberta schools. She then completed a B.A. and M.A. at the University of Alberta, studying creative writing under F.M. Salter; in 1946 she submitted her first novel, In Due Season, as her thesis.
In Due Season (1947), which explores the human costs of pioneering in northern Alberta through the 1930s, went on to win the Oxford-Crowell prize for Canadian fiction.
During three years of writing and teaching at the university, she married, and from 1953 to 1964 her husband's work led the family to Montreal, Pakistan, the USA, England, and the Sudan, before they settled in Ottawa. Throughout her many travels, van der Mark continued writing stories, articles, and a short novel with a Pakistani setting, Hassan (1960).
In 1960 she began Honey in the Rock (1966), which focused on a tightly knit community of ‘Brethren in Christ’ in southern Alberta in 1936–7.
The novel was completed in Ottawa and followed by three unpublished works: Where the Long River Flows, a Novel of the Mackenzie; Paul Goss, about a rural teacher in remote northern Alberta; and No Longer Bound, an autobiographical piece.
See ‘Afterword’ by van der Mark's daughter, Dorothy Wise, in the 1966 reprint of In Due Season.
Biographical information is available in The Oxford Companion to Canadian literature, 2nd ed., p. 1152.
Canadian photographer, writer, art critic and historian, and antiquarian book dealer Richard Beaufort Simmins was born on October 14, 1924 in Ottawa, Ontario. Served as a gunner in Royal Canadian Artillery in W.W. II. Received a B.A. and M.A. in art history from the University of Toronto. Worked as curator of The Norman MacKenzie Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan (1952-1957); Director of Exhibition Extension Services, National Gallery of Canada (1957-1962) where he organized the first exhibition of the Regina Five in 1961; Director of Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia (1963-1967); freelance art critic at Vancouver Province (1968-1972); director of The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia (1973-1975) where he commissioned Images of Stone : B.C. : Thirty Centuries of Northwest Coast Indian Sculpture in 1975; owner-operator of Richard Simmins Books and The Old Book Cellar in Ottawa, Ontario (1979-1992); and freelance photographer (1989-1999) specializing in photo-cards documenting his daily life. A prolific correspondent, he often wrote hundreds of letters a year. Died November 5, 1999 in Ottawa.
Canadian poet, novelist, and short-story writer Cecelia Frey was born in 1936 on a homestead near Padstow south of Mayorthorpe, Alberta. She moved to Edmonton where she worked as a social worker and librarian and attended the University of Alberta where she received a BA in Philosophy. In 1970, she launched her writing career by attending the University of Calgary where she took a writing course with W.O. Mitchell, going on to receive an MA in English. Her thesis, Organizing Unorganized Space: Prairie Aesthetic in the Poetry of Eli Mandel, is concerned with the impact of undefined space on creative consciousness.
She has since worked as a freelance writer, editor and teacher. An organizer and producer of the Calgary Creative Reading Series, she served as fiction editor of Dandelion Magazine from 1983-1988.
Frey is the author of novels: Breakaway; The Prisoner of Cage Farm; A Fine Mischief; A Raw Mix of Carelessness and Longing; The Long White Sickness; Moments of Joy; Lovers Fall Back to Earth. Her poetry collections include: the least you can do is sing; Songs Like White Apples Tasted; And Still I Hear Her Singing; reckless women; Under Nose Hill; North. Frey’s short story collections include The Nefertiti Look; The Love Song of Romeo Paquette; and Salamander Moon. Her play, The Dinosaur Connection, was produced on CBC’s Vanishing Point series in 1988. She also authored the non-fiction book Phyllis Webb: An Annotated Bibliography of Canada’s Major Authors Series (for ECW Press 1985).
Her short stories and poetry have been published in dozens of literary journals and anthologies as well as being broadcast on CBC radio and performed on the Women’s Television Network.
Her novel, A Raw Mix of Carelessness and Longing, was shortlisted for the 2009 Writer's Guild of Alberta George Bugnet Fiction Award and she is a three-time recipient of the WGA Short Fiction Award. Her novel, Lovers Fall Back to Earth, was a finalist for the 2019 International Book Awards (Fiction-Literary). She was the 2018 recipient of the WGA Golden Pen Lifetime Achievement Award and has also won awards for playwriting.
Frey lives in Calgary, Alberta, where “she is responsible for 3 children, 6 grandchildren.”
Biographical information is available in The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, p. 399.
Canadian author, educator, historian and public servant George Francis Gilman Stanley was born in Calgary, Alberta, on July 6, 1907. Educated at the University of Alberta and Oxford University, he served in the Second World War as director of the Canadian Army's Historical Section in London. He subsequently taught at Mount Allison University, University of British Columbia and Royal Military College. Dr. Stanley was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the recipient of twelve honorary degrees, Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick (1982-1987), designer of the Canadian maple leaf flag, and author of eighteen books and countless articles and book reviews. He died in Sackville, New Brunswick on September 13, 2002.