Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, in 1936. He lived on the Prairies until the age of ten when his parents moved back to the family farm on Cape Breton.

After obtaining his Teacher's Certificate from the Nova Scotia Teacher's College, Alistair took his B.A. and B.Ed. (1960) from St. Francis Xavier University, his M.A. (1961) from the University of New Brunswick, and his Ph.D. (1968) from the University of Notre Dame. He taught at Indiana University from 1966 until 1969, then moved to the University of Windsor, where he is currently Professor of English and Creative Writing.

Alistair's short fiction roots itself in carefully delineated and haunting settings, only to transcend the settings in humane explorations of the personal struggles that challenge and often defeat men and women of all time.

Alistair MacLeod resides in Windsor, Ontario.

Publications

To Every Thing There Is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story llustrated by Peter Rankin
McClelland & Stewart, 2004. $19.99
ISBN 0-7710-5565-X

Click here for WFNS' description of this book.

Island: The Collected Stories. McClelland & Stewart, 2000. ISBN 0-7710-5568-4.
     Click here for WFNS' description of this book.

No Great Mischief. McClelland & Stewart, 1999. ISBN 0-7710-5567-6.
      Click here for WFNS' description of this book.
      Winner of the 2000 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
      Winner of the 2000 Dartmouth Book & Writing Award for Fiction.
      Winner of the 2000 Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Choice Award.
      Winner of the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

"Alistair MacLeod enjoys a place in 20th century North American literature not enjoyed by very many writers. Like Ernest Hemingway his work gets high and well-deserved praise from literary critics and the general population. This is his first novel, but it is not a departure in story or theme."
      - Sheldon Currie, "No Great Mischief." The Antigonish Review, No. 120 (Winter 2000)

"...he gets it right... he never loses the reader either to didacticism, sentimentality, or to the technicalities required in describing the culture of the miners."
      - Lorna Drew, "A Song of Sorrow, Not Despair." The Fiddlehead, No. 205 (Autumn 2000).

As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories. McClelland & Stewart, 1986. ISBN 0-7710-9882-0.

"MacLeod establishes a storyteller's compact between narrator and reader -- one wants to say 'listener', given the compelling cadences of his prose."
      - from "As Birds Bring Forth the Sun. . ." Review by Janice Kulyk Keefer. The Antigonish Review, No. 66-67, Summer-Autumn 1986.

"Ten years ago, ordinary and distinguished readers alike noticed the impeccable maturity and originality of MacLeod's way of writing about youth and death, vigour and decline and rural Nova Scotia, and they will see the same meticulous and startling perfections in this collection."
      - from "Alistair MacLeod. . ." Review by Janet Giltrow. Event, Vol. 15, No. 2.

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood. McClelland & Stewart, 1976. ISBN 0-7710-9969-X.

You can send mail to Alistair MacLeod
c/o Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia