Literary Nonfiction. With contributing editors R. Beaudoin, S. Fisher, I. Higgins, E.-M. Kroller & L. Ricou. FROM A SPEAKING PLACE brings together 63 essays, notes and interviews from 50 years of contributions to Canadian Literature, Canada's foremost journal on the country's writers and writing. Included are such stylish writers as Margaret Atwood, Gerard Bessette, George Bowering, George Elliott Clarke, Wayde Compton, Basil Johnston, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Thomas King, Margaret Laurence, George Ryga, Andreas Schroeder, Audrey Thomas, Tom Wayman, Rudy Wiebe and George Woodcock. FROM A SPEAKING PLACE invites you into a conversation (in both English and French) about what it means to be a reader and a writer in Canada. This Canada speaks: of Inuit voices and Al Purdy's "rock gothic," of Bombay and Trinidad, of "great traditions," urban findings, laughter, Acadia, nation, translation, theatre, exploration, life stories and more, from official languages and le monologue quebecois to Marshall McLuhan and "Hollywood Not." Illustrated by George Kuthan's woodcuts, the book celebrates Canadian Literature's 50th anniversary in 2009.

Author City: Vancouver, BC CAN

William New is one of Canada's outstanding men of letters: well known for his children's books, his adult poetry, his writings on Canadian and postcolonial literature, and his literary criticism (some 30 volumes). He is on the editorial board of the New Canadian Library and the editor of the monumental Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada (University of Toronto Press). For many years he was the editor of the journal Canadian Literature. He is presently on the board of the New Canadian Library and recently edited the Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. He is Professor Emeritus of English and Canadian literature at the University of British Columbia. He lives in Vancouver.