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Distributed for Athabasca University Press

Wild Words

Essays on Alberta Literature

As the first collection of literary criticism focusing on Alberta writers, Wild Words establishes a basis for identifying Alberta fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction as valid subjects of study in their own right. By critically situating and assessing specific Alberta authors according to genre, this volume continues the work begun with Melnyk's Literary History of Alberta.

224 pages | © 2009


Table of Contents

PREFACE: The Struggle for an Alberta Literature / Donna Coates and George Melnyk

INTRODUCTION: Wrestling Impossibilities: Wild Words in Alberta / Aritha van Herk

PART ONE: Poetry

1. The "Wild Body" of Alberta Poetry / Douglas Barbour

2. "To Canada": Michael Gowda's Unique Contribution to the Literary History of Alberta / Jars Balan

3. Pastoral Elegy, Memorial, Writing: Robert Kroetsch's "Stone Hammer" Poem / Christian Riegel

PART TWO: Drama

4. No Cowpersons on This Range: The Cultural Complexity of Alberta Theatre / Anne Nothof

5. Playing Alberta with Sharon Pollock / Sherrill Grace

PART THREE: Fiction

6. "No Woman is Natural": The (Re)production of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Suzette Mayr's Moon Honey / Helen Hoy

7. Wandering Home in Rudy Wiebe's Sweeter Than All the World and Of This Earth / Malin Sigvardson

8. Richard Wagamese – An Ojibway in Alberta / Frances W. Kaye

PART FOUR: Nonfiction

9. From Grizzly Country to Grizzly Heart: The Grammar of Bear-Human Interactions  in the Work of Andy Russell and Charlie Russell / Pamela Banting

10. The Doomed Genre: Myrna Kostash and the Limits of Non-fiction / Lisa Grekul

AFTERWORD: Writing in Alberta – Up, Down, or Sideways? / Fred Stenson

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

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