Bronwen Wallace

WORKS

POETRY

Marrying into the Family. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1993.

Keep That Candle Burning Bright and Other Poems. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1991.

The Stubborn Particulars of Grace. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987.

Common Magic. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1985.

Signs of the Former Tenant. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1983.

Bread and Chocolate/ Marrying Into the Family. with Mary di Michele. Ottawa: Oberon, 1980.

OTHER WORKS

Helwig, Maggie and Bronwen Wallace, eds. Coming Attractions. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1989.

“Lilacs in May: A Tribute to Al Purdy.” Essays on Canadian Writing 49 (1993): 86-92.

Page, Joanne, ed. Arguments With the World: Essays by Bronwen Wallace. Kingston, ON: Quarry Press, 1992.

People You’d Trust Your Life To. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990. (reissued in 2001, with one new short story).

“Women’s Lives: Alice Munro.” The Human Elements: Critical Essays. Ed. David Helwig. Ottawa: Oberon, 1978. 52-67.

CRITICISM

Archer, Anne. Rev. of Common Magic, by Bronwen Wallace. Queen's Quarterly, 93.3 (1986): 663-665

Atwood, Margaret. Rev. of Common Magic, by Bronwen Wallace. Journal of Canadian Poetry 2 (1987): 120-123.

Bennett, Donna. “Bronwen Wallace and the Meditative Poem.” Queen’s Quarterly 98.1 (1991): 58-79.

Bennett, Donna. “Bronwen Wallace, 1945-1989.” Books in Canada 18.7 (1989): 5.

Boire, Gary. “Arbitrary Magic.” Rev. of Common Magic, by Bronwen Wallace. Canadian Literature 110 (1986): 130-32.

“Bronwen Wallace’s Work Crackled with Energy.” Globe and Mail Toronto - Metro Edition. 26 Aug 1989: C18.

Carey, Barbara. Rev. of The Stubborn Particulars Of Grace, by Bronwen Wallace. Books in Canada 17.2 (1988): 31.

Dorscht, Susan and Eric Savoy. “Particular Arguments: A Special Issue On Bronwen Wallace.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991).

Dorscht, Susan R. “Writing at the Interval.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 100-111.

Di Michele, Mary. “Bronwen Wallace: A Woman You’d Trust Your Life To.” The Gazette 14 April, 1990: J3.

Finn, Patrick. “When Editing Goes Write: The Correspondence of Erin Moure and Bronwen Wallace.” Textual
Studies in Canada 13/14 (2001): 101-112.

Freiwald, Bina. “This Isn’t One to be Told in the Third Person: Wallace’s Life-Stories.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 112-133.

Geddes, Gary. “Bronwen Wallace: 1945-1989.” Canadian Literature 124-125 (1990): 391.

Gzowski, Peter. The Morningside Interviews.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 15-25.

Hatch, Ronald B. Rev. of The Stubborn Particulars Of Grace, by Bronwen Wallace. University of Toronto Quarterly 58.1 (1988): 37-38.

Kertzer, JM. “Bronwen Wallace: The Stubborn Arguments of the Particular.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 71-87.

Lee, Dennis. “Bronwen Wallace’s Work Crackled With Energy.” The Globe and Mail 26 August, 1989: C18.

Lee, Dennis. “A Geography of Stories.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 11-14.

Lockett, Elizabeth. Rev. of The Stubborn Particulars Of Grace, by Bronwen Wallace. Canadian Materials 16.5 (1988): 187.

Lynes, Jeanette. Rev. of The Stubborn Particulars Of Grace, by Bronwen Wallace. Canadian Literature 122-123 (1989): 212-215.

McMaster, Susan, ed. Two Women Talking: Correspondence 1985 to 1987, Erin Mouré and Bronwen Wallace. Ottawa: Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets, 1993.

McMaster, Susan, ed. “Two Women Talking: Correspondence 1985 to 1987, Erin Mouré and Bronwen Wallace.” Quarry 42.2 (1993): 33-50.

Meyer, Bruce and Brian O’Riordan. “The Telling of Stories: An Interview with Bronwen Wallace.” Poetry Canada Review 9.3 (1988): 3-5.

Moure, Erin. Rev. of Keep That Candle Burning Bright And Other Poems, by Bronwen Wallace. Books In Canada 20.7 (1991): 40-41.

Nixon-John, Gloria. “Getting the Word Out: The Country of Bronwen Wallace and Emmylou Harris.” The Women of Country Music. Eds. James E. Akenson and Charles K. Wolfe. Louisville, KY: UP of Kentucky, 2003. 46-60.

“Obituary: Poet and Filmmaker.” Quill and Quire 55.10 (1989): 4.

“Obituary: She Taught a Lesson in How to Die Just as she had Taught One in How to Live.” Toronto Star 16 Sept. 1989: M24.

Rev. of Common Magic, by Bronwen Wallace. University of Toronto Quarterly 56.1 (1986): 35.

Robertson, Heather. Rev. of Arguments with the World: Essays by Bronwen Wallace, ed Joanne Page. Books In Canada 22.1 (1993): 41-42.

Scobie, Steven. “The Voices of Elegy: or, Hurtin’ Songs for Bronwen Wallace.” Bolder Flights: Essays on the Canadian Long Poem. Eds. Frank M. Tierney and Angela Robbeson. Ottawa, ON: University of Ottawa Press, 1998. 151-159.

Smart, Carolyn. “Obituary: Poet and Author.” Canadian Forum 68.784 (1990): 20.

Smart, Carolyn. “A Place at the Table.” Journal of Canadian Poetry 5 (1990): 1-2.

Smart, Carolyn. “Bronwen Wallace: In Memoriam, 1945-1989.” Poetry Canada Review 10.3 (1989): 14-15.

Tregebov, Rhea. Rev. of Keep That Candle Burning Bright And Other Poems, by Bronwen Wallace. University of Toronto Quarterly 62.1 (1992): 67-68.

Tregebov, Rhea. Rev. of Arguments with the World: Essays by Bronwen Wallace, ed. Joanne Page. Quill & Quire 58.9 (1992): 67.

Tregebov, Rhea. Rev. of Keep That Candle Burning Bright And Other Poems, by Bronwen Wallace. Quill & Quire 57.10 (1991): 31.

Vandenbeukel, Fay. “Interview with Bronwen Wallace.” Room of One’s Own 14.1 (1990): 53-63.

Williamson, Janice. “I Couldn’t Separate the Landscape from How I See my Poems Moving.” Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 286-298.

Williamson, Janice. “The Landscape from How I See my Poems Moving: An Interview with Bronwen Wallace.” Open Letter 7.9 (1991): 26-35.

Wong, Rita. Rev. of Imprints and Casualties, ed. Anne Burke. Herizons 16.1 (2002): 38.

Woodcock, George. Rev. of The Stubborn Particulars Of Grace, by Bronwen Wallace.Canadian Poetry 10.2 (1989): 37-42.

York, Lorraine M. “Home Thoughts or Abroad? A Rhetoric of Place in Modern and Postmodern Canadian Political Poetry.” Essays on Canadian Writing 51/52 (1993): 321-339.

DISSERTATIONS
Nixon-John, Gloria. “A Place of Rupture: The Life and Poetry of Bronwen Wallace.” Dissertation. Michigan State University, 2001.

AWARDS

National Magazine Award

Pat Lowther Award

Du Maurier Award for Poetry

1989: Commonwealth Poetry Prize

The Bronwen Wallace Award is given annually to a writer who is below the age of 35 and not yet published, as Wallace herself was unpublished until this age. The Bronwen Wallace Award alternates annually between short fiction and poetry.

BIOGRAPHY

Brownwen Wallace was born in 1945 in Kingston, Ontario. She earned both her BA and her MA at Queen’s University in the 1960s. Upon graduation, she moved to Windsor, where she founded a women’s bookstore, and worked with women’s groups. Returning to Kingston in the late 1970s, Wallace continued her volunteer work with women’s groups, and began to teach courses in both women’s studies and creative writing. Her first collection of poetry, Marrying into the Family, was published in 1980, and was printed and bound together with Mary di Michele’s Bread and Chocolate. She published three more collections of poetry over the next seven years: Signs of the Former Tenant (1983), Common Magic (1985), and The Stubborn Particulars of Grace (1987). A collection of her short stories, People You’d Trust Your Life To, was published posthumously in 1990. Wallace died of cancer in 1989. Since this time, the Bronwen Wallace Award has been established, awarded each year to a young poet or short fiction writer who is not yet published, and who is under the age of 35.

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