SUSAN MUSGRAVE

Curriculum Vitae
UPDATED December 25, 2006

BOOKS PUBLISHED (fiction)

Cargo of Orchids (fiction) (national bestseller) Knopf, Fall 2000, Trade Paper edition, Vintage, Fall 2001; Harper and Collins, Australia, 2002; MeridianZero, Italy, 2005

The Dancing Chicken (Methuen, 1987)

The Charcoal Burners (McClelland & Stewart. 1980 (Finalist in Seal First Novel Competition and short-listed for Governor General's Award); paperback by Totem in 1981)

BOOKS PUBLISHED (poetry)

What the Small Day Cannot Hold: Collected Poems 1970-1985 (Beach Holme, 2000)

Things That Keep and Do Not Change (McClelland & Stewart, 1999; Included on The Globe and Mail's Best 100 Books of the Year List, 1999; Finalist, Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, 2000)

Forcing the Narcissus (McClelland & Stewart, 1994)

The Embalmer's Art: Poems New and Selected (Exile Editions, 1991)

Cocktails at the Mausoleum (McClelland & Stewart, 1985); Beach Holme (revised edition, 1992)

Tarts and Muggers: Poems New and Selected (McClelland & Stewart, 1982)\

A Man to Marry, a Man to Bury (McClelland & Stewart,1979) (Short-listed for Governor General's Award)

Becky Swan's Book (Porcupine's Quill, 1978)

Selected Strawberries and Other Poems (Sono Nis Press, 1977)

Kiskatinaw Songs (Pharos Press, 1977. With Sean Virgo, illustrated by Douglas Tait)

The Impstone (McClelland & Stewart, 1976; Omphalos Press, London, 1978)

Grave-Dirt and Selected Strawberries (Macmillan, 1973; Short- listed for Governor General's Award)

Entrance of the Celebrant (Macmillan, 1972; Fuller d'Arch Smith, London)


BOOKS PUBLISHED (for children)

Dreams are More Real than Bathtubs (Fiction; Illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay. Orca. 1998. Selected by The Canadian Children’s Book Centre for Our Choice 1999-2000)

Kestrel and Leonardo (Studio 123, 1990. Poetry. Illustrated by Linda Rogers)

Hag Head (Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1980. Fiction. Illustrated by Carol Evans)

Gullband (J.J. Douglas, 1974. Poetry. Illustrated by Rikki Ducornet)

BOOKS PUBLISHED (non-fiction)

You're in Canada Now...A Memoir of Sorts (Thistledown, 2005)

Musgrave Landing: Musings on the Writing Life(Stoddart, 1994)

Great Musgrave (Prentice-Hall 1989; short-listed for the 1990 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour)

COMPILED AND EDITED

Because You Loved Being a Stranger: 55 Poets Celebrate Patrick Lane (Harbour Publishing, 1994)

Clear Cut Words: Writers for Clayoquot (Hawthorne Society for Reference West, 1993)

Breaking the Surface (Sono Nis, 2000): Winner BC2000 Book Award)

Series editor of the following Annick YA anthologies:

Nerves Out Loud: Critical Moments in the Lives of Seven Teen Girls (Annick Press, Fall 2001; Short-listed: ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award for children's/YA non-fiction, US, 2002; short-listed for the Norman Fleck Award,2002)

You Be Me: Friendship in the Lives of Teen Girls (Annick, 2002)

Certain Things About My Mother: Daughters Speak (Annick, 2003)

Perfectly Secret: The Hidden Lives of Seven Teen Girls (Annick, 2004)
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CHAPBOOKS

In the Small Hours of the Rain Reference West (Victoria) 1991; winner, First Prize, of b.p. Nichol Poetry Chapbook Award, 1991)

Mother’s Day Behind the West Hotel published by Poetgoat Press, in a limited edition. The poems in this sequence were inspired by the stories of six women, all heroin addicted prostitutes, from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Director Stan Feingold (The Eyes Multimedia Productions) commissioned me to write a “script” for a one hour documentary art film - not a conventional “objective” script but a series of original poems. Segments of these poems were used as a voice-over in HEROINES, which premiered on Bravo! on Father’s Day, 2001, and launched the fall 2002 season on the CBC’s ROUGH CUTS.

HEROINES has won many awards, both at home and internationally. In 2002 it won four Golden Sheaf Awards at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, the longest running film festival in North America. In addition it was nominated for Best Editing, Best Script and Best Director. As well, HEROINES was awarded the National Film Board’s Kathleen Shannon Award, which is presented to an independent filmmaker whose production “provides an opportunity for people outside the dominant culture to speak for themselves.”

PORTFOLIO

The Spiritualization of Cruelty six poems with drawings by Pavel Skalnik, limited edition, lettered and numbered, 1992

PAMPHLETS AND BROADSIDES

Many pamphlets (limited editions) from the Sceptre Press in England. From Dreadnaught 52-Pickup, #9 (1976): Between Friends. Taboo Man was published by Celia Duthie, 1981, in a limited edition of 50 signed copies. The Plane Put Down in Sacramento and "I do not know if things that happen can be said to come to pass or only happen" as broadsides, by William Hoffer. Desireless: Tom York (1947-1988) published by Slug Press, 1988; The Situation in Which We are Both Amateurs published by Lazara Press, 1998.

ANTHOLOGIES (POETRY)

Canadian Literature in the Seventies (Holt,Rinehart and Winston, 1980); New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse (Oxford, 1982); Antologia de la Poesia anglocanadiense contemporanea (Los Libros de la Frontera, Barcelona, Spain, 1985); The New Canadian Poets 1970-1985 (McClelland & Stewart, 1985); The Norton Introduction to Poetry, 3rd Edition, 1986, and 6th Edition, 1994; The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 1988, 1989; The Norton Introduction to Literature, Regular, 6th Edition, 1994 and Shorter, 6th Edition, 1994; The Great Big Book of Canadian Humour edited by Allan Gould (Macmillan, 1992); portrait included in Barbara Woodley's Portraits: Canadian Women in Focus (Doubleday. 1992); Poetry: An Introduction (Bedford Books of St Martin's Press, 1994); Bedford Introduction to Literature (Bedford Books, 1995); Best American Poetry, 1995, edited by David Lehman (Scribner/ Simon & Schuster); Uncommon Wealth (Oxford, 1997)


ANTHOLOGIES (FICTION/NONFICTION)

Fever: Sensual Stories by Women Writers, edited by Michelle Slung (Harcourt Brace, 1994); Best American Erotica, 1995 edited by Susie Bright (Simon & Schuster)

PERIODICALS (SELECTED)

Canada: Anthos; Ascent; Brick; Border Crossings; Canadian Literature; Event; Exile; The Imperial Oil Review; The Malahat Review; Queen's Quarterly; Poetry Canada Review (cover and feature); The Prison Journal; Toronto Life; Writers' Quarterly (cover and feature)

USA: Boundary 2; Iris; Ladybug (for children); Mundus Artium; Negative Capability; Nimbus; Pivot; Poetry Studies, Prairie Schooner; Southern Review; Three Rivers Poetry Journal; Vice

Britain: Ambit; Aquarius; Bananas; New Departures; New Poetry; Poetry Review; The Little Word Machine

Australia: Helix, Poetry Australia

Denmark: Anglofiles

ONLINE: Essays on salon.com

ESSAYS

Horizons edited by Ken Roy ((Harcourt Brace, 1994); Far and Wide edited by Sean Armstrong (Nelson, 1994); Without a Guide: Contemporary Women's Travel Adventure, edited by Katherine Govier (Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1994); DESIRE In Seven Voices, edited by Lorna Crozier Douglas & McIntyre, 1999; WRITING LIFE: Pen International, 2006

COLUMNS

The Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, STEP Magazine (Vancouver) Cut To: Magazine, Victoria, Sidney Review, Sidney, B.C. (1988-1991), Ottawa Citizen (Op-Ed page) September 2001- March 2003; Focus, 2004 (ongoing)

REVIEWS

Globe and Mail; National Post; Ottawa Citizen; Vancouver Sun

AWARDS

Has won prizes in five categories: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, children's books and for her work as an editor

National Magazine Award (silver) 1981

R.P. Adams Short Fiction Award (3rd prize) for “The Remains of Edward's,” published in Negative Capability, Mobile, Alabama, 1989

b.p. nichol Poetry Chapbook Award (First Prize) 1991

Readers' Choice Award for poems published in the Winter 1993 edition of Prairie Schooner

CBC/Saturday Night/Tilden Award for Poetry, 1996 (First Prize)

Vicky Metcalf Short Story Editor's Award, 1996

Panty Lines: First Prize for “Ice-Age Lingerie,” 1999

National Magazine Award for "Visitor’s Rites," in Saturday Night, 2000: Honourable Mention

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, Honourable Mention, 2000, for Things That Keep and Do Not Change


JUDGE AND/OR JURY MEMBER

Poetry Competition for the Saskatchewan Government's Department of Culture and Youth,     1978
Canada Council Short term Grant Jury, September 1, 1983
Canada Council "B" Grant Jury, September 1984; September 1987
Harbourfront's "Discovery Night", Toronto, 1984
Canada Council Block Grant Jury, 1985
Canada Council Public Readings Programme Jury, 1985
Dorothy Shoemaker Poetry Awards, Kitchener, Ontario, 1985
POETRY '86 National Poetry Competition, 1986
Limerick Contest for Victoria Department of Tourism, 1987
Regional Judge (Canada and Caribbean area) of British Airways Commonwealth Poetry     Competition, Trinidad, 1987
Canada Council "A" Grant Jury, 1988
British Columbia Criminal Justice Association in conjunction with the National Parole Board     and Correctional Services Canada, Essay Contest for National Crime Prevention Week,     1988
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, 1989
Canada Council Project Grant Jury, October 1989
The 1990 National Radio Awards: Best Actor, Male
Stephen Leacock Limerick Award, 1990, 1991, 1992
St. John's City, Newfoundland Writing Awards, 1990
CAA Poetry Awards, 1991
Okanagan College Short Story Award, 1991
Prism International Short Fiction Award, 1992
Ontario Arts Council Periodicals Jury, 1992
Governor General's Award for Poetry Jury, 1992
Ontario Arts Council Works in Progress Jury, 1993, 1995
Saskatchewan Book Awards, 1994
Hart House (University of Toronto) Short Story Competition, 1995
The League of Canadian Poets Eighth National Poetry Competition, 1995
"Writes of Spring '95" Creative Writing Contest (Scarborough Board of Education) 1995
(m)other Tongue Press chapbook Contest, 1996
B.C. Cultural Branch Scholarship Awards, 1996
B.C. Festival of the Arts, 1997
Bronwen Wallace Award, 1998
City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, 1998
ReLit Awards, 2001
Saskatchewan Book Awards (Poetry) 2003
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, 2003
C.B.C. Poetry Awards, 2006
C.B.C. "Canada Reads" 2006

THEATRE

Gullband (produced and directed by Paully Jardine) was performed by the Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto
(Christmas 1976) and by the Touchstone Theatre in Vancouver (Christmas 1977).

"Valentine's Day in Jail", adapted from a scene in Cargo of Orchids (Knopf, 2000) was produced by Ruby Slippers in Vancouver, B.C. in their 1995 production of "Herotica".

INTERNATIONAL POETRY READING TOURS and FESTIVALS

1971: Struga Poetry Festival, Yugoslavia
1980: Anglo-Canadian Poetry Exchange: a two-week reading tour of England, Scotland,     Wales and Paris, sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets, Dept. of External Affairs,     The British Council and the National Poetry Secretariat, London. With bill bissett and     George Johnston.
1983: Irish Tour: a three-week reading tour of southern Ireland; 21 venues, with
    Robin Skelton
1984: Rotterdam Poetry Festival, Holland, and Poetry Olympics, London
1993: Budapest Spring Festival, Hungary, with Roch Carrier
1993: Stockholm Book Festival, Sweden, with Aritha van Herk
1995: Danish Association of Teachers of English; Odense, Denmark
2005: Noir in Festival, Courmayeur, Italy

In addition, I have been giving numerous poetry readings, lectures and speeches in bookstores, libraries, art galleries, museums, prisons, psychiatric wards, and high schools across Canada and the US, since 1975.


WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE

University of Waterloo, 1983-1985
University of New Brunswick, Summer Session 1985
Vancouver Public Library, National Book Week 1986
Festival of the Written Arts, Pender Harbour, B.C. 1987
Ganaraska Writer's Colony, Fiction Workshop. June 26 - July 9, 1988
Sidney Public Library, Sidney, B.C. Short-term Writer-in-Residence April, 1989
Ganges High School, Short-term-Writer-in-Residence, November 1989, February 1991
George P. Vanier Secondary School, B.C. Short-term Writer-in- Residency, May 1991
Kaslo Summer School of the Arts, Short-term-writer-in-Residence, August 1991
University of Western Ontario, 1992-1993
Festival of the Written Arts, Sechelt, B.C. November 11-14, 1993, May 23-27, 1994
Writer-in-Electronic-Residence, 1991-2003 (ongoing) (writer online and writer/moderator)
Banff Centre for the Arts, November 1994
University of Toronto Presidential Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, 1995
Victoria School of Writing, 1996, 1998, 2006
The Ralph Gustafson Chair of Poetry, Malaspina College, Fall 2000


TEACHING POSITIONS

Arvon Foundation, Sheepwash, Devon, 1975: Instructor, with Brian Patten
Arvon Foundation, Lumb Bank, Yorkshire, 1980: Instructor, with Liz Lochead
University of Waterloo, 1983-1984: Instructor, English 335 (Creative Writing)
University of Waterloo, 1984-1985: Instructor, English 336 (Advanced Creative Writing)
Kootenay School of Writing, 1986: Instructor, Creative Writing Workshop
Camosun College, Victoria, B.C.: Instructor, Creative Writing, 1988-2006 (ongoing)
Mentor, B.C. Festival of the Arts, 2001
University of Northern B.C., Quesnel, B.C. 2001-2004; Five-day summer (credit) courses
    in Short Fiction and Poetry; Summer 2007, "Extreme Poetry"
Island Mountain Arts; poetry and fiction workshops in Wells, B.C. 2001-2003
Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia's Optional-Residency MFA in Creative     Writing Programme, 2005 (ongoing)
University of Victoria Summer School: Cross-Genre Writing, May 2007


RADIO AND TELEVISION AND FILM (Selected)

Profiled on BCTV, December 1985 and October 1986.
CTV LIFETIME October 1986. CBC NEWS September 1987.
CTV LIFETIME Fall 1987. THE JOURNAL, Fall 1987.
BCTV, February 1988. CKVU TV, December 1989.
CANADA IN VIEW (CTV, April 1990)
The Shirley Show (CTV January 1992)
Front Page Challenge (February 1993)
Canada AM (March 1994)
CBC Life and Times: "The Poet and the Bandit" (January 1999)

Heroines (Bravo, 2001): Poetic-script for documentary film on Lincoln Clarkes
and the heroin-addicted prostitutes of Vancouver's lower east-side

"Where Did you sleep last night" (teenagers recruited into the sex trade) and
"Truth and Betrayal" (the secrets teenagers keep) - two 15-minute film
    scripts for the National Film Board's "Teenagers at Risk" series, 1998

"Valentine's Day in Jail", a chapter from Cargo of Orchids published in Fever
    and Best American Erotica, 1995 was produced by Back Alley Films
    in their series "Bliss" (Showcase, 2003).

Poems have been broadcast on the C.B.C's Anthology, The Hornby Collection, etc.
"The Wages of Love" was produced by the C.B.C.'s State of the Arts in March 1987.
Poems have been broadcast on Poetry Now (Radio Three, BBC London).
Reviewed for Book Panel on the C.B.C.'s Journal 1989-1991. Has spoken on C.B.C.'s Sunday     Morning, Morningside, Word for Word, Afternoon Show and others, on a wide variety of     subjects: talking books, sonnets, erotic literature, politics, etc.
October 1994: Commissioned to write a series of nine radio essays for C.B.C.'s Morningside.


LYRICS/CD

“Missing,” dedicated to sixty-two of the missing women on Vancouver’s downtown eastside, 2003. Music by Brad Prevadoras, vocals by Amber Smith. Proceeds from sales go to Haven Society, who provide a transition house for women and children who have suffered abuse, as well as a Victim Services/Women’s Assault Programme on Vancouver Island.

MEMBER

Writers' Union of Canada (Chair, 1997-1998); B.C. Federation of Writers; Canada Council Advisory Committee, September 1992-1993; Stephen Leacock Poetry Awards Advisory Committee; Writers in Electronic Residence Advisory Committee, and Executive Committee

ARCHIVES

McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada