Relating Carol Shields’s Essays and Fiction

This collection of essays explores celebrated Canadian author Carol Shields’s experimentation with the essay genre in relation to her fiction. Shields’s essays clarify her iconoclastic approach to rules of narrative and illuminate her revisionist policies, elucidating the development of her fiction, both novels and stories, as her writing gradually becomes more explicitly feminist, as well as more daringly postmodernist. The dozen essays by the eminent Canadianists included in this edition throw fresh light on Shields’s writing, inviting us to read it with new eyes by revealing how her essays reflect and refract the brilliance of her fiction. These essays read Shields’s fiction through the lens of her essays, including those contained in the recent Giardini edition, wherein the author explains the creative methodologies involved in her fiction and also offers specific advice to writers of fiction.

“Relating Carol Shields’s Essays and Fiction brings together some of the most longstanding and experienced critics of Canadian Literature between covers in wide-ranging and thorough analyses of the singular accomplishments of Carol Shields. Focusing on her essays, short fiction, novels, and reviews, they gauge the many ways Shields most effectively used and experimented with her inherited forms. Altogether, a compelling portrait of a great writer at work emerges.” (Robert Thacker, Charles A. Dana Professor of Canadian Studies and English Emeritus, St. Lawrence University)

“In this collection of fourteen articles, prominent scholars read Carol Shields’s short stories and novels through the lens of the writer’s illuminating essays. In examining the policies and practices of fiction and her own experience of the writerly life, Shields’s essays afford invaluable insight into her fiction. Original in its focus and range, this volume expands our understanding of Shields’s visionary approach to ‘writing as an act of redemption’.” (Ruth Panofsky, Professor of English, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)

“This new collection of essays on Carol Shields is a welcome addition to the body of critical work on this esteemed author. Longtime fans of Shields among the general reading public—as I am—will be as receptive to this study as academics already well-versed in the field. The new perspectives help to keep alive a talented writer who left us far too young.” (Judith Ruderman, Professor Emerita of English, Duke University)

“This is a wonderfully rich collection of essays on one of Canada’s most important writers. Lucid, innovative, and brilliant, these essays read Shields’ writing through her non-fiction, illuminating how the author’s inner thoughts and beliefs shaped her craft. A significant contribution to Canadian literary criticism, the collection features essays written by an impressive array of scholars. It provides lively and insightful interpretations—a must-read for all those interested in Carol Shields and Canadian literature.” (Laura Davis, Professor of English, School of Arts and Culture, Red Deer Polytechnic, Canada)

“There is something for every fan or scholar of Carol Shields’s work in this engaging collection of essays. An impressive array of top scholars in the field covers a wide range of topics, showcasing the many dimensions of Shields’s work, not just as an award-winning novelist and short story writer, but also as an essayist, book reviewer, and inspiring creative writing teacher. This book is an important contribution to Shields’s literary legacy.” (Sarah Wylie Krotz, Associate Professor and Director, Canadian Literature Centre, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Canada)

“This anthology is a must for fans of Carol Shields. Nowhere else will you find such lively, informed discussions of her writing craft or so quickly discover why her work was beloved by literary critics and the reading public alike. This anthology’s fascinating, wide-ranging examination of the literary forms Shields used—novels, short stories, plays, essays and biographies—is a major contribution to an appreciation of one of our literary giants.” (Susan Swann, Professor Emerita, Department of English, York University, Canada, author and co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction)

“The fourteen contributors to this edited collection explore intricate and playful connections between Carol Shields’s essays and fiction, highlighting the innovative experimentation of her writing—her blurring of fact and fiction, curiosity about narrative shapes, and writerly activism. In this powerful and engaging volume, highly regarded scholars come together to study the complexity of the feminist, postmodernist, and metafictional qualities of Shields’s work and to celebrate one of the most generous and compassionate voices in Canadian literature.” (Margaret Steffler, Professor Emerita, Department of English, Trent University, Canada)

Nora Foster Stovel is a Professor Emerita of the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. She has published books and essays on Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence, Margaret Drabble, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, and Margaret Laurence, including Divining Margaret Laurence: A Study of Her Complete Writings 2018. She currently holds a SSHRC Insight Grant for her program of research on Carol Shields.