The Canadian Shields
Stories and Essays
Overview
Newly discovered work by one of Canada’s favourite writers
The Canadian Shields brings together fifty short writings by Carol Shields (1935–2003), including more than two dozen previously unpublished short stories and essays and two dozen essays previously published but never before collected. Invaluable to scholars and admirers of Shields’s work, the writings discovered in the National Library Archives by Nora Foster Stovel and presented to the public here for the first time reflect Shields’s interest in the relationships between reality and fiction, mothers and daughters, and gender and genre. They also reveal her love of Canada, especially Winnipeg, her home for twenty years. Originally written for women’s magazines, travel journals, convocation addresses, and even graduate school term papers, Shields’s imaginative essays explore ideas about home, Canadian literature, contemporary women’s writing, and the future of fiction. Whether autobiographical, cultural, or feminist in focus, these works vividly illuminate the multiple chapters of Shields’s writing life.
Margaret Atwood and Lorna Crozier frame Shields’s texts with tributes to her work and impact. An introduction by Stovel situates Shields as a Canadian author and subversive feminist writer, demonstrating how American-born-and-raised Carol Anne Warner became “the Canadian Shields”—a quintessential and beloved Canadian writer and the only author to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the Governor General’s Gold Medal for Fiction.
Reviews
“A significant trove, this collection of stories, letters, articles, and speeches throws light on the mysterious creative process as it moves from personal experience to public performance. The Canadian Shields gave me a new angle for approaching a long-time favourite writer."
Elizabeth Waterston, University of Guelph
“This collection is of major value to any Shields reader. Stovel’s long and intimate acquaintance with every facet of Shields’s writing makes her pre-eminent in this field.”
Neil Besner, Professor Emeritus, University of Winnipeg
About the Authors
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Foreword by Margaret Atwood—“‘A Soap Bubble Hovering Over the Void’: A Tribute to Carol Shields"
Preface
Introduction: “The Canadian Shields, or How an American Writer Became an Award-winning Canadian Author”
PART I: CAROL SHIELDS’S PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED STORIES AND ESSAYS
Stories
Protein Dust
A Message from Beyond
The Golden Boy, or Some Things Only Happen Once
Essays
Gifts
Christmas Interruptus
Coming to Canada
Did anything happen to you in the fifties?
Writers Are Readers First
Books that Meant
The Reader-Writer Arc
The Writer’s Second Self
The Writing Life
Making Words / Finding Stories
My Back Pages
Women’s Voices in Literature
Women and The Short Story
The Feminine Line
The New Canadian Fiction
Crossing Over
Writers’ Gender Swapping
The Unity of Our Country
Address to University of Winnipeg Graduands
Concordia University Convocation Address 1998
University Leadership and Social Change
Idealism and Pragmatism in Two Novels of Sara Jeannette Duncan
The Two Susanna Moodies
The Healing Journey
PART II: CAROL SHIELDS'S PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BUT UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS
I’ve Always Meant to Tell You: A Letter to My Mother
At Home in Winnipeg
Living at Home
Sunday Dinner, Sunday Supper
My Favorite Place—At Home in Deepest France
Travelwarp
Legacy of Stone
Others
What’s in a Picture
Rare Petals
A Purse of One’s Own
Heidi’s Conundrum
Parties Real and Otherwise
The Best Teacher I Ever Had
The Visual Arts
A Delicate Balancing Act
Divorce
Introduction to Duet
Carol Shields’s Booker Prize Report
Foreword to The Stone Diaries
Afterword to Life in the Clearings
Introduction to Mansfield Park
Afterword to Dropped Threads I
Afterword to Dropped Threads II
Conclusion
Afterword by Lorna Crozier—"Carol's Haunting Voice"
Notes
Works Cited
Index
