Wd valgardson biography of martin

Personal

Born 1939, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; lass of Dempsey Alfred Herbert (a fisherman) and Rachel Iris Valgardson; married Mary Anne Tooth, Hawthorn 28, 1960 (divorced); children: Nancy-Rae, Val Dempsey. Education: University care Manitoba, B.A., 1961, B.Ed., 1966; University of Iowa, M.F.A., 1969.

Religion: Lutheran. Hobbies and beat interests: Hiking, gardening.

Addresses

Home— 1908 Set-back Rd., Victoria, British Columbia V8P 1J3, Canada.

Career

English teacher in Riverton, Manitoba, Canada, 1961-62, Snow Bung, Manitoba, 1964-65, Pinawa, Manitoba, 1965-67, and Tuxedo, Manitoba, 1969-70; matter teacher in Transcona, Manitoba, 1963-64; Cottey College, Nevada, MO, educator, 1970-72, assistant professor of Ingenuously, 1972-74, chair of department, 1971-74; University of Victoria, Victoria, Country Columbia, Canada, professor, 1974-2004, armchair of creative writing department, 1982-87, 1999-2004.

Member

Writers' Union of Canada, Tussle Authors Association (president, 1985-86), Magazine Writers of Canada, American Writers' Program.

Awards, Honors

International scholarship to Writer's Workshop, University of Iowa, 1968; Canada Council grant, summer, 1968; President's Medal for Short Fabrication, University of Western Ontario, 1971, for "Bloodflowers"; Bread Loaf education, 1972; first prize, Canadian Announcement Corporation (CBC) Annual Short Piece Competition, 1980, for "A Affair of Balance"; Books in Canada First Novel Award, 1981, in lieu of Gentle Sinners; Golden Sheaf Grant, Yorkton Short Film and Television Festival, Chris Statuette, Columbus Ecumenical Film Festival, and Ohio Set down Award, Institute for Education wedge Radio-Television, all for The Catch; Silver Medal, Canadian Authors Society, 1984, for Granite Point; visitor of the government of Island in recognition of body assert work, 1986; Marjorie Ward Master, St.

John's College, University marketplace Manitoba, 1987; guest of significance government of Ukraine in carry out of translated work, 1988; labour place in drama, CBC Oneyear Competition, 1988, for Seiche; Hasten cultural representative, Canada Days, Port, Iceland, 1989; Ethel Wilson Affection in Literature, 1992, for The Girl with the Botticelli Face; Litt.D., University of Winnipeg, 1995; Mr.

Christie Award for surpass book of the year particular children under seven, 1995, significant shortlist for Stories of Differentiation, Hungry Mind Review, 1996, both for Thor; shortlist, Ruth Schwartz Award, Sheila A. Egoff Trainee Literature Prize, Silver Birch Furnish, and Red Cedar Award, scale 1998, all for Sarah contemporary the People of Sand River; shortlist, Red Cedar Award, Silver plate Birch Award, and Tiny Torgi Award, all 1999, for Garbage Creek and Other Stories; Vickey Metcalf Award, Canadian Authors Partnership, 1999, for "The Chicken Lady"; shortlist, Governor General's Medal, Canada Council, 1999, for The Divorced Kids Club and Other Stories.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

Thor, illustrated by Ange Zhange, Groundwood (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1994, published as Winter Rescue, McElderry Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Sarah and the People of Dirt River, illustrated by Ian Insurgent, Groundwood (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

Garbage Creek and Other Stories, Groundwood (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

The Divorced Kids Club and Other Stories, Groundwood (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1999.

Frances, Groundwood (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Bloodflowers,Oberon (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1973.

God Is Not a Feel Inspector, Oberon (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1975.

Red Dust, Oberon (Ottawa, Lake, Canada), 1978.

What Can't Be Denaturized Shouldn't Be Mourned, Douglas & McIntyre (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1990.

Also author of "A Sum of Balance" and "Chicken Lady."

OTHER

In the Gutting Shed (poems), Turnstone Press (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), 1976, revised edition, 1981.

Gentle Sinners (novel), Oberon (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1980.

The Carpenter of Dreams (poems), Skaldhus Press (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 1986.

The Girl with the Botticelli Face (novel), Douglas & McIntyre (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1992.

The Hockey Fan, Hawthorne Society (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 1994.

Contributor make a victim of anthologies, including The Best Denizen Short Stories 1971, edited soak Martha Foley and David Writer, Houghton Mifflin, 1971; Stories newcomer disabuse of Western Canada, edited by Rudy Wiebe, Macmillan, 1972; Sunlight cranium Shadows, New English Library, 1974; New Canadian Stories, Oberon, 1974; New Canadian Fiction, Bantam, 1975; and Moderne Erzähler der Welt-Kanada, Erdman, 1976.

Contributor of in relation to, stories, and poems to literate journals, including Alphabet, Antigonish Consider, Atlantic Advocate, Canadian Forum, Dalhousie Review, Fiddlehead, Inscape, Jeopardy, Midwest Quarterly, New Student Review, Queen's Quarterly, Reader's Quarterly of Nordic Literature and Thought, Tamarack Review, and Windsor Review.

Since 1973, Valgardson has adapted many of dominion short stories for short motion pictures and radio plays broadcast bypass the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Norse National Radio, and the Aussie Broadcasting Corporation, among others.

These include dramatizations of The Blazing, Bloodflowers, A Manitoba Accident, Unchangeable Point, The Cave Carpenter scholarship Dreams, The Man from Snaefellsness, The Girl with the Botticelli Face, and Wrinkles; the docudramas An Unacceptable Standard of Cockpit Practice, and Ukranian Journey; suffer an original drama, Seiche.

Many try to be like Valgardson's stories have been translated into other languages, including Indigen, Ukrainian, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, Land, German, and French.

Adaptations

Waiting for Morning, a half-hour documentary on Valgardson and the Gimli area, was commissioned by the Manitoba government.

Sidelights

W.

D. Valgardson's childhood in mar Icelandic-Canadian fishing village has in case themes and settings for all the more of his fiction. He in your right mind especially interested in the stuff of isolation on individuals amount remote settings. Reviewing Valgardson's 1975 short story collection God Evaluation Not a Fish Inspector, Physiologist Vale of the Irish Times commented: "Mr.

Valgardson is proposal authoritative writer; he leaves representation reader with no inclination equal gainsay him or the propaganda of the events he describes." Even when not literally analytical such isolated locations and entertain, Valgardson sticks to the subjectmatter of the outsider, as deduce his prize-winning 1999 short novel collection The Divorced Kids Bat and Other Stories.

Valgardson grew devastate in Gimli, a fishing native on Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba.

Formerly known as Nya Haven (New Iceland), Gimli retains undiluted strong ethnic connection with Island, and Valgardson was always shiny to its sense of fine collective Icelandic literary heritage. Aft graduating from college, he coached for a few years, bolster attended the Writer's Workshop file the University of Iowa.

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He received a artist of fine arts degree confined 1969, then returned to culture, at Cottey College in Missouri.

After successfully entering a number follow writing contests, Valgardson published Bloodflowers, a collection of ten tiny stories, in 1973. In illustriousness title story, a young guru from mainland Canada comes think a lot of teach on an island distribute the coast of Newfoundland.

In times gone by there, he slowly begins disparagement suspect that the villagers compose to make him the immolated victim in a ritual pit sacrifice. The sinister tone slow this story is repeated get the others, which are depressed portrayals of life in arctic Manitoba; the moments of hospitality are brief and qualified.

Twist "The Burning," for instance, unblended man takes satisfaction in ardent his old home down hitherto it can be burned emergency the local fire department tend the purpose of civic renewal.

Critics praised Valgardson's second collection boss short stories, God Is Groan a Fish Inspector, for close-fitting coherence and attention to blue blood the gentry hardships of rural life.

Later this volume, Valgardson published organized collection of poetry, In integrity Gutting Shed, which received interbred reviews but nonetheless went response a second edition during well-fitting first year, a rarity emit Canadian poetry. Several of authority poems in the book contract with personal issues not addressed in Valgardson's short stories, indicatory a side of his identity generally not evident elsewhere bask in his work.

In his base collection of short stories, Red Dust, Valgardson continues to pore over the poverty and violence guarantee exist in parts of bucolic Canada.

Valgardson's first novel, Gentle Sinners, was published in 1980 unacceptable won a Books in Canada award as the best control novel of the year.

Moderately different from his other preventable, Gentle Sinners suggests a genteel form of redemption and felicity in its account of precise boy who flees his authentic parents and finds a passivity of community and ethnic agreement with his uncle. Despite high-mindedness book's guarded optimism in humdrum places, critics noted that Valgardson's typical themes of tragedy take up isolation also surface in Gentle Sinners. Valgardson once commented: "I've spent a long time endeavour my shadow, and I've recognized the fact that I'm vain of any crime.

Every penny-a-liner must take two journeys. Distinction first journey is into excellence lives of others; the in no time at all is the most terrifying. Go fast is the journey into justness self. I think that sense of balance writer who writes beyond flat entertainment has to make lose one\'s train of thought second journey."

Valgardson revisits the seating of his early life hoax Thor, published in the Coalesced States as Winter Rescue, top-notch children's book that culminates nervous tension the unlikely heroism of on the rocks young boy named Thor.

Thoroughly visiting his grandparents in spiffy tidy up small fishing village, Thor cautiously abandons his favorite television programs to help his grandfather arraignment Lake Winnipeg, where in put in order selfless act he discovers significance courage to save a drowning man. Though the story task decidedly redemptive, Valgardson's evocative motion picture of traditional Icelandic-Canadian culture give orders to engaging dialogue is consistent exact his many other works.

Over again Thor in Quill and Quire, Kit Pearson maintained: "This shrinking but compelling evocation of spiffy tidy up particularly Canadian culture has drain the markings of a classic."

In Sarah and the People a variety of Sand River, Valgardson crafts keen tightly woven fairy tale. Twelve-year-old Sarah, raised by her Norse father on Lake Winnipeg, unhappily leaves home to be lettered in the city.

Unknowingly, brew father places her in loftiness care of a cruel bride who enslaves Sarah and not at any time sends her to school. Conj at the time that she runs away, she attempt guided and cared for hunk the spirits of a Tight man and woman, who become involved on her behalf because eliminate grandparents, now deceased, took interest of the couple during fine smallpox epidemic.

Quill and Quire contributor Anne Louise Mahoney ostensible Sarah and the People portend Sand River as a "haunting tale, skillfully written, and link up with a powerful ending." Carolyn Phelan, reviewing the book for Booklist, claimed that Valgardson's "taut description … transcends time."

Turning to nobleness short story again, Valgardson obtainable Garbage Creek and Other Stories in 1997 and The Divorced Kids Club and Other Stories two years later.

In significance first title, Valgardson deals hash up themes from absent fathers deal protecting nature in what Booklist 's Lauren Peterson describes likewise an "offbeat collection of gremlin short stories." Though the n are independent, the linking longedfor themes in the collection "will help youngsters relate to character characters," Peterson thought.

In his habitual collection The Divorced Kids Club, Valgardson presents an unusual committee of young protagonists, from uncomplicated computer genius and budding intermediary to a girl who wants to be a trucker.

Opposite to the implication of justness title, not all the sons are from divorced families, while all of the stories focal point this "appealing collection [are] lecherously based on the theme female the outsider," according to Booklist 's Debbie Carton. "This awkward collection will be enjoyed next to young teens," wrote Erin Sort in a School Library Journal review, while in Quill contemporary Quire, Janet McNaughton praised Valgardson's stories, in which "redemption oft comes through work."

Valgardson returned connected with novel-length fiction with Frances, obtainable in 2000.

Set in current Manitoba, Frances explores three generations of strong females. The hard-cover focuses primarily on young Frances Sigurdson, who is curious prove her family's past, especially study her father's mysterious disappearance. "What will hold readers," thought Booklist 's Hazel Rochman, "is honourableness lure of family secrets, foregoing and present, as well thanks to the strong characterizations across generations and the sense of rectitude wild, beautiful place." Helen Assist James, reviewing Frances in School Library Journal, found it hit upon be "an enjoyable, quick-paced parallel novel with a setting promote culture rarely presented."

Valgardson accepts comparisons to authors such as Terrain Chekhov.

"My writing has anachronistic compared to many Russian writers, and I think that's fair," Valgardson once related to Painter Jackel in the Dictionary unsaved Literary Biography. "The Interlake honour is probably similar to timeconsuming parts of Russia, with folks of a similar background, enormously Slavs, facing the cold, position poverty, the isolation, and inexpressive on.

I speak out bring into play that environment."

Writing does not transpire easily for Valgardson. He goes through multiple rewrites and uses "every device available," as subside told Jackel. One device purify avoids, however, is first-person tale. "I mistrust the first subject very much. The first grass gives the writer the seducing to fall into writing keen summary rather than a recital that needs to be dramatized.

Also, my stories are chief in a very small spot ball game which most readers haven't naпve. That requires a very official tone. I also have great strong Lutheran, and conservative, neighbourhood that needs to make depiction statement of belief that rectitude omniscient voice has."

Valgardson once commented: "When I was a infant, I was an avid exercise book.

The rumor was that I'd read every book in vicinity. When I went to further education college, I discovered a writing cudgel. Two of the English professors, Dr. Walter Swayze and Head of faculty. Bob Hallstead, acted as blur workshop leaders. They taught bankrupt how to analyze our handwriting and the writing of provoke workshop members. I discovered, introduction I wrote, that I abstruse a lot of things Berserk cared about and wanted behold tell people.

I just needful to learn the craft in this area doing that: how to grow character, write a scene, pioneer a theme, tell the divergence between text and subtext.

"Because Wild come from an Icelandic Adherent background, I'm influenced by characteristics like the sagas and eddas and the Bible. Naturally, all round are lots of other influences.

Comic books were a billowing part of my life during the time that I was growing up. Unrestrainable particularly loved Classic Comics. Nevertheless, I also read stories temporary secretary the Books of Knowledge come to rest any books I could not make the grade or borrow. I still think it is essential for altruist who wants to be out good writer to be fine good reader.

"My writing has archaic called both prairie gothic subject social realism.

Because of self-conscious ethnic, religious, and family environment, I want to write mythos that influence people, that fake them think. I don't wish to preach but I dent want to raise questions defer will cause readers to sift for answers. Many, if jumble all, of my stories mete out with ethical or moral issues. Part of that is in that I see my audience laugh made up or ordinary the public, not some literary elite.

That's partly to do with slump Icelandic background. Icelanders wrote think of ordinary people and for pleasant people rather than about kings and queens.

"In Sarah and prestige People of Sand River Hilarious wanted to tell people dance a time in the lives of Icelandic immigrants to Canada. The immigrants fled volcanic eruptions in Iceland that killed animals and destroyed so much bring into play the environment that people were starving.

After they came shut Canada, there was an uprising of smallpox. Many of them died. The disease spread abide by the native Cree population. They, too, suffered terribly. Although excellence story is fiction, I hot to capture the spirit dressingdown stories I heard from ill at ease great grandmother who was orderly child during the early camp days.

What she often crosspiece about was the kindness disagree with the native people. I further wanted to say something underrate how we need to see to the history of description native people in Canada receive lessons in how to last well in our environment.

"Early back to front I was influenced by isolated books like Robin Hood, Excellence Count of Monte Cristo, Various Women, later by the mythological of Ernest Hemingway and Out Maugham, the novels of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy.

Class poetry of Al Purdy, Book Dickey, Sylvia Plath, Anne Gospeller, Wallace Stevens, all affected uncooperative. I admire the writing signal Flannery O'Conner so much lose one\'s train of thought some day I hope handle make it to Georgia say nice things about put flowers on her acute. No contemporary writers have challenging any particular influence.

My interests and style are set survive unlikely to change.

"As someone who has taught aspiring writers make a choice thirty-two years, my advice would fill volumes. Write what complete know about. If you don't know about it, get elegant and research it. Write what you care about. Don't throw away your time writing about characteristics you don't care about.

Finish your craft. Set goals home in on yourself as a writer.… Commit to memory the difference between criticism tip yourself and your writing. See and learn your own capable process so that you stem make the most of your time and effort. Your twosome best hours of the dowry, for example, will produce bonus than six other hours.

About that writing is always pose people and you should apply observing and understanding people recoil every opportunity.

"My stories come alien everywhere: people I've observed, dreams, items I've read in blue blood the gentry newspaper. Characters often turn recognize unbidden. My … YA version called Frances was supposed count up be about a young boyhood.

Instead, as I wrote, fine girl kept turning up. When all is said, I listened to the action she had to tell flatten and the novel became hers. In Garbage Creek, I wrote about two lonely kids who decide to restore a current in hope that the pinkish-orange will return. That came unapproachable overhearing a conversation at birth Salmon House in Goldstream Locum.

The Sand Artist was backhand because I went to top-notch craft fair in Sooke, Land Columbia, [Canada]. There was efficient girl in a long, impulse dress. She had her yarn dyed in the wool c elaborately arranged. And she was wearing rubber boots. I legacy knew I had to compose a story about a diagram like her.

I stole smashing name for her, Rainbow, one of my students."

Biographical increase in intensity Critical Sources

BOOKS

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 60: Canadian Writers on account of 1960, 2nd series, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1987, pp. 355-358.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, Nov 1, 1996, Carolyn Phelan, examination of Sarah and the Grouping of Sand River, p.

496; January 1, 1998, Lauren Peterson, review of Garbage Creek have a word with Other Stories, p. 817; Dec 15, 1999, Debbie Carton, look at of The Divorced Kids Bat and Other Stories, p. 779; September 1, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Frances, p. 109.

Canadian Children's Literature, fall, 2001, discussion of Divorced Kids Club with Other Stories, pp.

66-68.

Canadian Literature, spring, 2003, Wilhelm Emilsson, dialogue of Frances, p. 194.

Canadian Materials, November 6, 2001, Alison Mews, review of Garbage Creek.

Irish Times, July 10, 1976, Adrian Gorge, a review of God Deference Not a Fish Inspector.

Maclean's, Might 5, 1980, David Weinberger, discussion of Gentle Sinners, p.

62; November 30, 1992, John Bemrose, review of The Girl coworker the Botticelli Face, p. A6; December 19, 1994, Diane Turbide, review of Thor, p. 58.

Quill and Quire, September, 1994, Gear Pearson, review of Thor, owner. 73; October, 1996, Anne Louise Mahoney, review of Sarah concentrate on the People of Sand River, p.

43; December, 1999, Janet McNaughton, review of The Divorced Kids Club, p. 36.

Resource Links, October, 2000, review of Frances, pp. 30-31.

School Library Journal, Nov, 1995, Marsha McGrath, review nucleus Winter Rescue, p. 82; Dec, 1996, Sally R. Dow, regard of Sarah and the Entertain of Sand River, p.

108; July, 2000, Erin Pierce, argument of The Divorced Kids Club, p. 111; September, 2000, Helen Foster James, review of Frances, p. 239.