Fonds F0237 - George Melnyk fonds

George Melnyk is a western Canadian writer and historian. Raised and educated in Winnipeg in the 1950s, he has spent most of his life in Alberta. He holds a BA (Hons) History from the University of Manitoba, an MA History from the University of Chicago and an MA Philosophy from the University of Toronto. In the 1970s he served as editor of NeWest Review and publisher of NeWest Press in Edmonton. In the 1980s he served as the executive director of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations and the Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts. He was also involved with the co-op movement publishing several books on the movement plus two newsletters.

He began instructing in the Canadian Studies Program at the University of Calgary in 1993 and retired as a full professor of Film Studies in 2016. He has published books on Canadian cinema and is the author of the two-volume Literary History of Alberta and co-editor of several books on Alberta literature. In 2013 he was awarded THE GOLDEN PEN AWARD for lifetime achievement by the Writers Guild of Alberta. From 2013 to 2016 he served as the treasurer of the Writers Union of Canada. He has served on the Board of Directors of PEN CANADA and as Chair of the Writers Union of Canada’s Freedom and Rights Committee (2018).