About This Site

Acknowledgements

The Curators

Source
Letter from Prime Minister Jean Chretien, dated August 2, 1996, congratulating Shields on her appointment to the Royal Society of Canada

The Canadian Writers website features some of the best literary examples of Canada's rich and varied published heritage. These examples come from Library and Archives Canada's Literary Manuscript Collection, which houses the archival fonds 1 of many Canadian writers. The emphasis of the collection, and of this website, is on creators and the process of creating works of literature. The unpublished materials contained in the fonds provide the reader with insight into the development of works of literature.

This wealth of documentary material can be consulted at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. However, a portion of this extensive and fascinating collection has been reproduced digitally on this website. Digitizing this sometimes-fragile Canadiana allows many more people access to it, while maintaining its preservation.

Acknowledgements

	Source
	Letter to Roger Lemelin, written by former premier of Quebec, René Lévesque, February 13, 1980

Library and Archives Canada wishes to thank site curators Marie Couillard, Dominique Lafon, Marcel Olscamp, Alice Van Wart, and David Staines, for acting as curators and contributing essays for this project. In addition, Monique Ostiguy (Literary Manuscript Archivist, French language fonds) and Catherine Hobbs (Literary Manuscript Archivist, English language fonds) offered invaluable support in preparing this virtual exhibit.

Library and Archives Canada appreciates the collaboration and partnership of Radio-Canada in preparing the Roger Lemelin section of this website. In particular, we thank Christine Simard, Zone Leader, Digital Archives and François Boulet, Director, Digital Archive Web Site.

We also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Department of Canadian Heritage, whose Canadian Cultural Online Program (CCOP) made this work possible.

The Curators

Marie Couillard holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Since 1977, she has been teaching at the Département des Lettres françaises at the University of Ottawa, where she is an associate professor. Dr. Couillard is an expert on Marie-Claire Blais, and has published numerous articles on this writer's work, as well as on nineteenth- and twentieth-century women writers from Europe and Quebec.

An assistant professor in the Département des lettres françaises of the University of Ottawa, Marcel Olscamp is the author of Le Fils du notaire (Fides, 1997), a biographical essay on Jacques Ferron, as well as three collections of poetry published by Écrits des Forges and Éditions de l'Hexagone. In addition to his interest in North American French literature, he is the director of a major inter-university research project dedicated to the publication of the unpublished works of Jacques Ferron.

Dominique Lafon, a professor at the University of Ottawa, teaches in the Lettres françaises and Theatre departments. A specialist in dramatic arts, she has published, in addition to numerous articles on classical and Québecois theatre, Le Chiffre scénique dans la dramaturgie moliéresque (Klincksieck/Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1990), in collaboration with Jean Cléo Godin, as well as Dramaturgies québécoises des années quatre-vingt (Leméac, 1999). She edited the anthology Théâtre québécois 1975-1995 (Fides, 2001) and is the editor of L'Annuaire théâtral.

Dean of Arts and Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, David Staines received his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. An authority on both medieval literature and culture and Canadian literature and culture, he has published many works about Canada's literary traditions, including The Canadian Imagination: Dimensions of a Literary Culture (1977), The Forty-ninth and Other Parallels: Contemporary Canadian Perspectives (1986), Beyond the Provinces: Literary Canada at Century's End (1995) and Margaret Laurence: Critical Reflections (2001).

Alice Van Wart is the editor of Elizabeth Smart's In the Meantime, a collection of poetry and prose, and two volumes of Elizabeth Smart's journals: Necessary Secrets and On the Side of the Angels. She holds a Ph.D. in Canadian Literature, has published two books of poetry and has contributed essays and articles to various literary journals, magazines and newspapers.

1. A fonds may include manuscripts, typescripts, galley proofs, correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, audio and video clippings, and computer files.