Keith Maillard

Keith Maillard (born 28 February 1942 in Wheeling, West Virginia) is a Canadian-American novelist, poet, and professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia.[1] He moved to Canada in 1970 (due to his opposition to the Vietnam War)[2][3] and became a Canadian citizen in 1976.[4][5]

Keith Maillard, Salt Spring Island, 2015

Family background

Maillard has French, Canadian, and American roots. His Huguenots great grandparents immigrated to Montreal from Lyon, France, in the early 1880s. His Maillard grandfather and two Montreal-born uncles continued the family tradition of glass-blowing, working for Dominion Glass in Montreal and in Redcliff, Alberta.[6]

Maillard's parents divorced when he was a baby and he never knew his father.[5][7] His father, Eugene C. Maillard, avoided glassblowing work, trained as a draughtsman, and worked for twenty-five years at the Hanford Site nuclear plant in Richland, Washington.[8] Maillard's mother's family settled in the Ohio River Valley in the late 18th century and it is from her family stories that Maillard draws inspiration for much of his historical fiction. He describes the process of his earliest childhood fiction in his 2011 essay, "Kilroy: A Writer's Childhood."[9]

Keith Maillard is married with two daughters[10] and lives in West Vancouver. His mother-in-law is Canadian novelist Rohan O'Grady.[11]

1960s

Maillard left his native West Virginia in 1965 and moved to Boston where he lived for five years. He worked in the anti-Vietnam-war movement from 1968-1970 and contributed numerous articles to Boston underground newspapers and radio.[12] In 1970, disillusioned after the Kent State shootings, he emigrated to Canada.[13] He was not eligible for the draft and was a war resister rather than a draft dodger.

1970s

In the early 1970s, Maillard worked as a freelancer for CBC radio, contributing pieces to This Country in the Morning, Five Nights, and Our Native Land.[12][10] He also contributed to periodicals, including Fusion, Body Politic, Malahat Review, Books in Canada, Canadian Literature, and newspapers.[10] He was in the Writers' Union of Canada, served on the National Council for two years,[14] and co-founded the Federation of BC Writers.[15][16] Maillard studied music at Vancouver Community College, played the Irish pipes, taught recorder and the rudiments of music for the Vancouver School Board and Vancouver Community College,[5][10] and played bass in the first band formed by Vancouver singer-songwriter, Ferron. In the late 1970s Maillard taught writing workshops in Vancouver's literary centre, The Literary Storefront, and participated in a number of readings and other events there.[17][18] In 1979 Maillard interviewed Canadian novelist Howard O’Hagan who explained to him his writing process; the interview appeared as a chapter in Margery Fee's Silence Made Visible: Howard O’Hagan and Tay John (1992).[19]

Maillard's first published novel, Two Strand River, appeared in 1976, published by Dave Godfrey's Press Porcépic. Most reviewers were confounded by this strange book with its cross-gendered protagonists and weird events, but Two Strand River soon acquired a cult following, came to be labeled a classic of Canadian magic realism,[20][21][22] and has been republished twice.

1980s

Maillard's second published novel was actually the first one he had begun; the book rejected by 26 publishers finally – after having passed through eight major rewrites – appeared in 1980 as Alex Driving South.[23][24] In this gritty, naturalistic tale, Maillard first introduced the fictional town of Raysburg, West Virginia, where most of his novels have been set. The Knife in My Hands, influenced by American writer Jack Kerouac,[5][20] followed in 1981, and its sequel, Cutting Through, in 1982. Then, with a fifth book half-completed, Maillard was afflicted with writer's block.

From 1985 through 1988 Maillard applied his writing skills to designing university and adult education courses for the Open Learning Agency and, from 1986–1989, he workshopped his screenplay, Two Strand River, with Patricia Gruben's Praxis Film Development Workshop (Simon Fraser University).[10][25]

Maillard's fifth novel, Motet, published in 1989, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.[26] Reviewer David Homel assured readers that despite the novel's sixteenth-century Dutch choral mystery and Vancouver setting, "power and madness made in the USA is still at the heart of Maillard's creativity."[27]

Having taught as a sessional lecturer at both the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University, Maillard was appointed in 1989 to a regular teaching position in UBC's Creative Writing Department, where he has taught every genre except stage writing.[5] He served as Advisory Editor of PRISM international for 10 years.

1990s

While at UBC, Maillard began what he considers his mature work – what has come to be known as the "Raysburg Series."[20][28][29][30][5] Called "a small masterpiece" by the Georgia Straight, Light in the Company of Women was published in 1993[31][32] and was runner-up for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.[33] It was followed in 1995 by Hazard Zones, which was included on the Toronto Star's list of the best Canadian books for that year and was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.[34]

Maillard's novel, Gloria (1999), was well received in Canada,[35] short-listed for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction,[36] and brought him national attention in the United States.[37] [38]

Maillard also returned to his first love, poetry, and published Dementia Americana, which won the Gerald Lampert Award for the best first book of poetry published in Canada.[39] He became interested in the re-emergence of formal poetry in North America and commented about it in his oft-cited essay, "The New Formalism and the Return of Prosody."[40][41][42][43][44][45][46]

2000s

The last of the "Raysburg Series", The Clarinet Polka (2002), was well received in the United States, particularly by the Polish American community.[47][48][49][50][51] It received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews,[52] and was included in Booklist’s Editors’ Choice ’03. It won the Polish American Historical Association's Creative Arts Prize, and came to the attention of scholars in Poland.[53][54][55]

Maillard was one of 35 writers placed on the West Virginia Literary Map in 2004 and he was inducted that year into the Wheeling, West Virginia, Hall of Fame.[4]

In 2004, Maillard returned to the raw Bildungsroman[56] material first published in The Knife in My Hands and Cutting Through and rewrote and reshaped it into the Difficulty at the Beginning quartet, which appeared in four volumes between September 2005 and September 2006.[57] The Toronto The Globe and Mail selected Difficulty at the Beginning as one of the top books of 2006, calling it "a work of terrible beauty and grace, a masterpiece fit to contend with the best novels of the last century."[58][59] Reviewer Richard Helm describes the quartet as Maillard's "magnum opus and the keystone of a literary career that has flown largely under the Canadian radar." He characterizes Maillard as "probably the most famous Canadian novelist you've never heard of."[60]

In 2006, with eleven out of fourteen titles nominated for or winners of literary awards, Maillard won UBC's Dorothy Somerset Award for excellence in the creative arts.[61]

2010s

In its 80th anniversary edition in 2015, the Quill & Quire listed Maillard as one of Canada's "notable Canlit talent" along with other American-born anti-Vietnam-War authors, Philip Marchand, Jack Todd, Judith Merrill, Mark Frutkin, and William Gibson.[62]

In his most recent novel Twin Studies (2018) -- set in Vancouver, Medicine Hat, and Los Angeles -- Maillard returns to the topic of gender fluidity that he first explored in Two Strand River in 1976.[63][64] Apple's iBooks reviewed the novel and described it as " a fascinating exploration of wealth, class, and gender fluidity [that] reads like a 21st-century Canadian version of Dickens' London novels."[65] Steven Beattie, in the September 2018 issue of Quill & Quire, notes that Maillard's subject matter arises out of lived experience. "When the author began publishing, the language for describing gender-fluid approaches did not exist." As Maillard himself put it in his interview with Beattie, "You can't apply a term to yourself unless it is culturally available. I would now call myself non-binary." [66]

The Vancouver Sun summarized Twin Studies as "that rare work: a story that grapples with difficult intellectual issues without ever abandoning the novelist's primary duty -- compelling narrative."[67] Maillard’s novel challenges the idea of isolated nuclear families and envisions what he says is “ a fluid larger family, in which people come together for other reasons. I think it's essential that we start rethinking family, that we start rethinking our connections to each other.”[68]

Twin Studies won the Alberta Book of the Year Award from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.[69] In an interview with Quentin Mills-Fenn of Prairie books Now, Maillard explained that his book explores ”the impact of traumatic experiences,” and that he firmly believes that “[p]hysicians and therapists who work with children and adolescents are telling us that a gender-affirming point of view from parents and, if possible, from the surrounding culture, makes for healthy and happy kids."[70]

Maillard's first non-fiction book, Fatherless: A Memoir (2019), traces the life of the mysterious father he never knew, and was well received in Canada. [71] [72] [73][74] CBC Arts columnist and creative nonfiction author/editor Alicia Elliott writes that Maillard's memoir "gives us a model of not only self awareness and honesty but also, more importantly, healing."[75]

2020s

Maillard's papers are currently held by the University of British Columbia's Rare Books and Special Collections.[12] A complete list of Maillard's publications can be found on his website.[76]

Awards and recognition

Bibliography
  • 1976: Two Strand River (Press Porcepic) ISBN 0-88878-088-5
    • 1982 reissue: Two Strand River (General Publishing) ISBN 0-7736-7031-9
    • 1996 reissue: Two Strand River (HarperCollins) ISBN 0-00-648143-4
    • 2013 reissue: Two Strand River (Keith Maillard) ebook ASIN BOOCOKVS4A
  • 1980: Alex Driving South (Dial Press) ISBN 0-8037-0196-9
    • 1983 reissue: Alex Driving South (General Publishing) ISBN 0-7736-7045-9
    • 2013 reissue: Alex Driving South (Keith Maillard) ebook ASIN BOOB7ABDL2
  • 1981: The Knife in my Hands (General) ISBN 0-7737-0057-9
    • 1982 reissue: The Knife in my Hands (Beaufort) ISBN 978-0-825-30082-0
  • 1982: Cutting Through (Stoddart) ISBN 0-7737-2003-0
    • 1983 reissue: Cutting Through (Beaufort) ISBN 0-8253-0120-3
  • 1989: Motet (Random House) ISBN 0-394-22028-5
    • 1997 reissue: Motet (HarperCollins) ISBN 0-00-648163-9
    • 1998 reissue: Motet (Harvill Press) ISBN 978-0-00-648163-8
    • 2013 reissue: Motet (Keith Maillard) ebook ASIN BOOAYB4N5S
  • 1993: Light in the Company of Women (HarperCollins) ISBN 0-00-223894-2
  • 1994: Dementia Americana, poems (Ronsdale/Cacanadadada) ISBN 0-921870-28-0
  • 1995: Hazard Zones (Harper Perennial) ISBN 0-00-224397-0
  • 1999: Gloria (Harper Flamingo) ISBN 0-00-648175-2
    • 2000: reissue: Gloria (Soho Press) ISBN 978-1-56947-206-4
    • 2001: reissue: Gloria (HarperFlamingo) ISBN 978-0-00-648175-1
  • 2002: The Clarinet Polka (Thomas Allen) ISBN 0-88762-100-7
    • 2003: reissue: The Clarinet Polka (St.Martin's Press) ISBN 0-312-30889-2
    • 2004: reissue: The Clarinet Polka (St.Martin's Griffin) ISBN 978-0-312-30890-2
  • 2005: Running (Brindle & Glass) ISBN 1-897142-06-4
  • 2006: Morgantown (Brindle & Glass) ISBN 1-897142-07-2
  • 2006: Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes (Brindle & Glass) ISBN 1-897142-08-0
    • 2011: Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes (Brindle & Glass) ebook ASIN BOOSVXS3DY
  • 2006: Looking Good (Brindle & Glass) ISBN 1-897142-09-9
  • 2018: Twin Studies (Freehand Press) ISBN 1-988298-31-8
  • 2019: Fatherless (University of West Virginia Press) ISBN 978-1-949199-13-0
  • 2021: The Bridge (Freehand Press) ISBN 978-1-988298-78-8

Anthologized
  • 1985: Vancouver Fiction. David Watmough, ed., Winlaw, B.C., (Polestar Press) ISBN 978-0-919591-05-9
  • 1986: Magic Realism and Canadian Literature: Essays and Stories, Proceedings of the Conference on Magic Realist Writing in Canada. University of Waterloo/Wilfrid Laurier University, May 1985; Peter and Ed Jewinski, eds. (University of Waterloo Press) ISBN 978-0-88898-065-6
  • 1999: New Expansive Poetry. R.S. Gwynn, ed., Ashland, Oregon, (Story Line Press) ISBN 978-1-885266-69-9
  • 2005: Wild Sweet Notes II: More Great Poetry From West Virginia. (Publishers Place) ISBN 978-0-9744785-2-4
  • 2008: The Best of Canadian Poetry in English, 2008. Stephanie Bolster and Molly Peacock, eds., (Tightrope Books) ISBN 978-0-9783351-7-5
  • 2008: Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War. Allan Briesmaster and Steven Michael Berzensky, eds., (Seraphim Editions) ISBN 978-0-9808879-1-4
  • 2014: Naked in Academe: Celebrating Fifty Years of Creative Writing at UBC. Rhea Tregebov, ed., (McClelland & Stewart) ISBN 978-0-7710-8926-8
  • 2018: Refuse: Canlit in Ruins. Hannah McGregor, Julie Rak & Erin Wunker, eds., (Book*hug) ISBN 978-1-7716643-1-8

References
  1. Keith Maillard, UBC Creative Writing
  2. Marilyn B. Young and Robert Buzzanco, eds., A Companion to the Vietnam War (John Wiley & Sons, 2002), 431.
  3. Robert McGill, War is Here: The Vietnam War and Canadian Literature (McGill Queens, 2017), 198, 277.
  4. Ohio County Public Library, "Wheeling Hall of Fame: Keith Maillard,"
  5. William H. New, "Keith Maillard," Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2002), 700.
  6. Keith Maillard, Fatherless: A Memoir (West Virginia University Press, 2019).
  7. Keith Maillard, "Hot Springs, Arkansas," Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011.
  8. Keith Maillard, "Richland," Numero Cinq Magazine, Vol.II No.3, March 2011.
  9. Keith Maillard, "Kilroy: A Writer's Childhood," Numero Cinq Magazine, Vol. II No. 5, May 2011.
  10. "Keith Maillard," Contemporary Authors Online, Detroit: Gale, 2012
  11. "June Margaret nee O'Grady Skinner," The Vancouver Sun, 22 March 2014
  12. Keith Maillard fonds, University of British Columbia
  13. Keith Maillard, Dementia Americana (Ronsdale Press, 1994), 12.
  14. Anne Innis Dagg, Smitten by a Giraffe: My Life as a Citizen Scientist (McGill-Queens, 2016), 131.
  15. Trevor Carolan, "25 Years of the Federation of BC Writers," BC Booklook, 12 December 2007
  16. Ben Nuttall-Smith, "The History of the Federation of BC Writers Extended," 7 July 2016
  17. Trevor Carolan, The Literary Storefront: The Glory Years 1978–1985 (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015), 61, 101, 117, 121, 122, 126, 135-36, 227. ISBN 978-1-896949-52-9.
  18. Nicholas Bradley, review of The Literary Storefront: The Glory Years 1878–1985, BC Studies, No. 191, Autumn 2016.
  19. Margery Fee, ed. Silence Made Visible: Howard O’Hagan and Tay John (ECW Press, 1992), 21-38.
  20. Geoff Hancock, "Keith Maillard," The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, eds., William Toy and Eugene Benson (Oxford University Press, 1997, online 2006), 717-718.
  21. Peter Hinchcliffe and Ed Jewinski, Magic Realism and Canadian Literature (Wilfrid Laurier University, 1985), 82.
  22. Stephen Slemon, "Magic Realism as Post Colonial Discourse," chapter in Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, eds., Magic Realism: Theory, History, Community (Duke University Press, 1995), 409.
  23. Clark Blaise, "Relearning Freedom," review of Alex Driving South, Canadian Literature 89 (Summer 1981): 131-133.
  24. Kirkus Reviews Alex Driving South
  25. Marsha Lederman, "Celebrated B.C. screenwriting program Praxis to fold," The Globe and Mail, 19 November 2013.
  26. Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
  27. David Homel, "Harmonics," Books in Canada, 1989
  28. Meredith Sue Willis, "Keith Maillard: Five Novels of Raysburg, West Virginia," Appalachian Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3/4 (2004): 358-366.
  29. Gordon Simmons, "Literature," e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia, 4 February 2014. Web. 1 May 2018
  30. Gordon K. Neufeld, "Laugh, cry, and laugh again," Books in Canada, Vol. 31, Issue 9, December 2002.
  31. Lorraine York, "Photographic Mixtures," Canadian Literature 141 (Summer 1994): 115-116.
  32. Michael Happy, Review of Light in the Company of Women, Books in Canada, Vol. 22, Issue 5, (Summer 1993): 46-47.
  33. Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
  34. Commonwealth Writers' Prize Shortlist
  35. T. F. Rigelhof, Hooked on Canadian Books: The Good, the Better, and the Best Canadian Novels Since 1984 (Cormorant Books, 2010), 258.
  36. Anne-Marie Tobin, "Matt Cohen, Keith Maillard among GG literary finalists," Canadian Press Newswire, 9 October 1999.
  37. Jesse Browner, "Little Gloria Free at Last," The New York Times, 8 October 2000
  38. GLORIA by Keith Maillard, starred review, Kirkus Reviews, 1 July, 2000
  39. Gerald Lampert Memorial Award
  40. Paul Scott Derrick, Lines of Thought: 1983–2015 (Universitat de Valencia, 2015), 143.
  41. Gerry Cambridge, "The New Formalism," Jay Parini, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature (Oxford University Press, 2004), 251, 253-54.
  42. Thomas Cable, "Connoisseurs of sound and the new formalism," Revue Francaise d'Etudes Americaines, No. 84 (March 2000):52-52
  43. Keith Maillard, review of Rebel Angels, The Antigonish Review, 109 (1999).
  44. Keith Maillard, "The New Formalism and the Return of Prosody," in R.S. Gwynn, New Expansive Poetry (1999): 52-71.
  45. Catherine Addison, A Genealogy of the Verse Novel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 424.
  46. Gregory Dowling, "New Formalism: Dangerous Nostalgia or Angellic Rebellion?" Letteratura e letterature, 3 (2009): 1-20.
  47. Etelka Lehoczky, "Books in Brief: Fiction and Poetry," The New York Times, 4 May 2003
  48. Smardz, Zofia (4 May 2003). "Banding Together". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  49. David James Jackson, " 'Another Polka Rockin' Weekend': Polish American Polka Music, Identity, and Traditional Values," Polish American Studies, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Spring 2014), 47.
  50. William Hal Gorby, "Saints, Sinners, and Socialists on the Southside: Polish Catholic Immigrant Workers, Politics, and Culture in Wheeling, West Virginia, 1890-1930," PhD thesis, University of West Virginia (2014), 2, 120, 123, 124, 128, 129, 351, 355-56.
  51. T. J. Napierkowski, "The Clarinet Polka: Life, Literature, Music," Polish American Studies, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Autumn 2004): 9-24.
  52. Inside jacket copy, Keith Maillard, Looking Good (2006), n.p.
  53. Booklist's Editors' Choice: Adult Books, 2003
  54. Polish American Historical Association Creative Arts Prize
  55. A. Branach-Kallas, "Folkloristic Hybrids: Diaspora Space in The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard," Przegląd Polonijny, Vol. 31, Issue 2 (2005):105-112.
  56. William H. New, A History of Canadian Literature (McGill-Queens, 2003), 229, 237.
  57. Gordon Simmons, Review of Difficulty at the Beginning, Appalachian Heritage, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Fall 2007): 103-105.
  58. Tom Sandborn, "The unbearable lightness of being American,"The Globe and Mail, 10 June 2006
  59. Tom Sandborn, "The '60s on the installment plan," The Globe and Mail, 21 October 2006.
  60. Richard Helm, "Maillard Canada's best unknown writer," Calgary Herald, 21 September 2006.
  61. "Kudos," UBC Reports, Vol. 53, No.3, 1 March, 2007
  62. "80 years of Q&Q: getting personal with Canlit personalities," Quill & Quire, 15 April 2015
  63. "The Globe 100: Our favourite books of 2018," The Globe and Mail, 30 November 2018.
  64. Theo Dombrowski, "Gender, manga, and teen idiom," BC BookLook, 22 January 2019.
  65. Apple Books review of Keith Maillard's Twin Studies, 2018.
  66. Steven W. Beattie, "Doubling down: As a writer and teacher, Keith Maillard prizes a multiplicity of approaches to literary craft," Quill & Quire, September 2018, 6-7.
  67. Tom Sandborn, "Keith Maillard's Twin Studies displays a lyrical beauty," Vancouver Sun, 5 October 2018.
  68. "Why Keith Maillard's novel Twin Studies dissects the nature of love and family," CBC Radio, 16 March 2019.
  69. "Three Freehand books win at Alberta Book Publishing Awards," Freehand Books, September 2019
  70. Quentin Miles-Fenn, "A complex pairing delves into genetics and identity," Prairie books NOW, Fall/Winter 2018/2019.
  71. Tom Sandborn, "B.C. novelist Keith Maillard writes about his search for the father who abandoned him," Vancouver Sun, 8 November 2019.
  72. Sue Carter, "Keith Maillard talks about his absentee father's 'one last gut punch from the grave,' " Toronto Star, 21 November 2019.
  73. Robert J. Wiersema, Book Review, Fatherless: A Memoir, Quill & Quire, December 2019, 21.
  74. Andrew Armitage, "Another Memory Courtesy of Keith Maillard," Sun Times, Owen Sound, January 4, 2020.
  75. Alicia Elliott, "New year, new me? How memoirs can help us shape our futures by examining other people's pasts," CBC Arts, 22 January 2020.
  76. Keith Maillard Publications List
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