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Austin Ardinel Chesterfield ("Tom") Clarke, author, was born in Barbados on 26 July 1934. His parents were Kenneth Trotman and Gladys Irene Clarke. His mother later married F.H. Luke. Clarke immigrated to Canada in 1956 and attended Trinity College at the University of Toronto for a short time. His interest in writing began early in life, and in the 1960s his short stories began to be published in Canadian and other periodicals. Clarke's stories and novels primarily centre around the plight of the immigrant West Indian in Canada, although his first two novels, The Survivors of the Crossing and Amongst Thistles and Thorns, take place in Barbados.

He was a member of The Immigration and Refugee Board from 1983 to 1993; he also held a position with The Ontario Film Review Board from 1984 to 1987. Clarke was the inaugural recipient of The Rogers Communications Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for his semi-autobiographical novel The Origin of Waves, published in 1997. His 2002 novel, The Polished Hoe, won the Trillium, Giller and Commonwealth prizes. His novel More was published in 2008. The author currently resides in Toronto, Ont. For further biographical material, please consult McMaster University's Library Research News (6, no. 1, Spring 1982) and Stella Algoo-Baksh, Austin C. Clarke: A Biography (Toronto: ECW Press, 1994). Clarke died in Toronto on 26 June 2016.

Donna Marie “Daisy” DeBolt, an accomplished singer-songwriter, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on July 19, 1945 to a musical family. DeBolt’s maternal grandfather, Percy Highfield (1882-1946), studied music in England and played violin for a symphony orchestra. After immigrating to Canada in 1910, he taught music in Foxwarren, Manitoba, and in residential schools in Kenora, Ontario. DeBolt’s mother, (Helen) Marjorie (Highfield) DeBolt (1916-1998), was a musician and music teacher, and played violin with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Her father, Donald DeBolt (d.1979), played banjo, chromatic harmonica, and the blues harp.

As a teenager, DeBolt studied jazz guitar with Lenny Breau (1941-1984). In 1965, she moved to Toronto, Ontario to pursue a music career as a folk musician. She met Allen Fraser in 1968 and the two formed the musical duo Fraser & DeBolt. They released two albums: Fraser & DeBolt With Ian Guenther, in 1971, and Fraser & DeBolt With Pleasure, in 1973. DeBolt and Fraser parted ways in the mid-1970s. DeBolt continued to write and perform as a solo artist and to collaborate with other musicians and poets. Her solo works include Soulstalking (1992), Live Each Day with Soul (2002), and Lovers and Fantasies (2004), an album featuring two songs by author Michael Ondaatje.

In addition to being a folk singer, DeBolt was well versed in blues, jazz and reggae, and played mandolin, accordion and guitar. Over the course of her career, DeBolt toured and played at festivals across Canada, performed in several theatre productions, composed for Ballet Ys, and wrote film scores for the National Film Board. She had a son, Jake DeBolt, with poet Robert Dickson (1944-2007). DeBolt died on October 4, 2011 in Toronto.

Nelson Ball, poet, publisher and book seller, was born in Clinton, Ontario in 1942. He established Weed/Flower Press in 1965 in order to publish Canadian and American poets. He is also the author of several collections of poetry, including Waterpipes and Moonlight (Weed/flower Press, 1969), Force Movements (Ganglia Press, 1969) and The Pre-Linguistic Heights (Coach House Press, 1970). Ball died in Brantford on 16 August 2019.

Betty M. B. Houghton, a British nurse, collected accounts of war experiences written by soldiers at No. 3 Military Hospital, Heavitree Hill, Exeter.

Farzana Doctor is a Canadian writer, activist, and psychotherapist. Her writing has been described as contemporary literary fiction, with a hint of magic realism. Her books explore themes of loss, diasporic identity and the immigrant experience, LGBT rights, and others.

Her second novel, Six Metres of Pavement won the Dayne Ogilvie Grant and the Lambda Literary Award in 2012, as well as being shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award.

Doctor continues to have a private practice and lives with her partner in Toronto.

Le comité québécois provisoire de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien was an ad hoc comittee which organized a series of meetings, 2-12 March 1970, concerning the Palestinian national liberation struggle and imperialism throughout the world. Members of the ad hoc committee included Michel Chartrand (CSN) and Stanley Grey (FLP). The week was known as "Semaine Québécoise de solidarité avec la Palestine; Quebec-Palestine solidarity week". The meetings were held at various universities and CEGEPs in Montreal and concluded with demonstrations at the American and Israeli consulates.

Fraser Sutherland was born in Pictou county, Nova Scotia. He was educated at King's College, Halifax and Carleton University. He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree. He was a reporter and staff writer for several newspapers and magazines, among them the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Wall Street Journal before he became a freelance writer and editor in 1970. He was the founding editor of Northern Journey from 1971-1976, a columnist for Quill & Quire, and the managing editor of Books in Canada. During 1981-82 he was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1982-83 he taught at David Thompson University Centre, Nelson, B.C.

His published fiction, poetry and criticism includes books such as The Style of Innocence (Clarke, Irwin, 1972), Madwomen (Black Moss, 1978), John Glassco: An Essay and Bibliography (ECW Press, 1984), The Monthly Epic: A History of Canadian Magazines 1789-1989 (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1989), Jonestown: A Poem (McClelland & Stewart, 1996), Peace and War, with Goran Simic, privately published, 1999, and The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy (with Steve Rivkin, Oxford University Press, 2004).

Fraser Sutherland passed away 28 March 2021 in Toronto.

Born on Rondeau Point, in New Scotland, Ontario, he was the son of John and Janey (McIntyre) McKishnie and the brother of the Canadian poet, Jean Blewett.

His first novel, Gaff Linkum, set in Kent County, Ontario, was published in 1907. In 1910, McKishnie relocated to Toronto and became the dramatic editor of the Toronto Sunday World. He was the director of the short story writing program at Shaw school in Toronto. His short stories regularly appeared in Maclean’s Magazine. Many of his stories featured a Black constable named Lennox Ballister. The first Lennox Ballister story was printed in Maclean’s in July 1918.
McKishnie’s books can be described as historical fiction, romance, nature stories, humor, adventure, and juvenile stories. He was the author of the following books:

• Gaff Linkum. A Tale of Talbotville. Toronto: Briggs. 1907. 255 p.
• Love of the Wild. Toronto: McLeod & Allen, 1910. 327 p.
• Willow, the Wisp. Toronto: Allen, 1918. 308 p.
• A Son of Courage. Toronto: Allen, 1920, 284 p.
• Big John Wallace. A Romance of the Early Canadian Pioneers. Toronto: Massey-Harris Press, 1922. 47 p.
• Openway. Toronto: Musson, 1922. 233 p.
• Mates of the Tangle. Toronto: Musson, 1924. 247 p.
• Brains, Limited. Toronto: Allen, 1925. 287 p.
• Dwellers of the Marsh Realm. Chicago: Donohue, 1937. 79 p.

Terry Fallis is a Canadian novelist, policial satirist, and political consultant. Terrence Hugh Fallis was born in Toronto on 23 December 1959, the son of Dr. and Mrs. James Fallis (née Barbara Ham); he has a twin named Tim. In 1983 Fallis earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from McMaster University. He also served as President of the McMaster Students Union.

After graduation, he joined future Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's full time staff for the 1984 federal Liberal Leadership campaign. He has worked as a legislative assistant for the Honourable Jean Lapierre and the Honourable Robert Nixon. From 1988-95, he was a government affairs and communications consultant with the PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, including stints as Vice President running the Ontario government affairs group and finally President of Berger & Associates, a Hill and Knowlton subsidiary. In 1995, with Joe Thornley, he co-founded Thornley Fallis, a communications consulting agency with offices in Ottawa and Toronto.

Fallis is also a novelist and political satirist. In 2007 he self-published The Best Laid Plans. It won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and then was published by McClelland & Stewart in September 2008. In 2010, the Waterloo Region chose The Best Laid Plans as the One Book, One Community selection. A sequel entitled The High Road was published by McClelland & Stewart in September 2010.

Fallis continues to publish highly praised and well received novels, including his 4th novel, No Relation, which also received the Leacock Medal for Humour. Further information about Fallis, including podcasts from his novels, can be obtained at his <a href="http://terryfallis.com/">website</a>.

David Helwig was born in Toronto in April 1938 and was raised in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He received his BA from the University of Toronto in 1960 and earned his Masters at the University of Liverpool in 1962.

During the mid-1960s, Helwig became established in the Canadian literary scene by co-founding Quarry Magazine with Tom Marshall and Michael Ondaatje. Based in Kingston, Ontario, he became an English professor at Queens University and taught courses at Collins Bay Penitentiary. Using prose interviews with an inmate of the penitentiary, Helwig published a book about his experiences titled A Book About Billie (Oberon Press, 1972).

Between 1974 and 1976, Helwig worked as the literary manager of CBC’s television drama department, and continued to work freelance at CBC in the following decades.

Helwig is the author of 17 books of poetry, 25 books of fiction, and several other books which include translations, collected essays, and his memoir. Among his novels are a collection set in Kingston, Ontario, known as “The Kingston Novels”: The Glass Knight (1976), Jennifer (1979), It’s Always Summer (1982), and A Sound Like Laughter (1983). His autobiography, The Names of Things: A Memoir was published in 2006. His poetry collections have received numerous awards, including the CBC poetry award for Catchpenny Poems (1983), and the Atlantic Poetry Award for The Year One (2004).

In 1996, Helwig relocated to Prince Edward Island. He was appointed the province’s Poet Laureate in 2008 and received the Order of Canada in 2009. He is also a recipient of the Matt Cohen Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada for lifetime contribution to Canadian literature.
As an essayist, Helwig published regularly in the Globe and Mail’s Facts & Arguments section (1990-1992) and the monthly PEI magazine, The Buzz (2005-2015).

His partner, Judy Gaudet, is an accomplished poet. His daughter, Maggie Helwig, is an Anglican priest, author, and social advocate in Toronto.

David Lewis was a political leader, labour lawyer, and university professor.

David was born in Svisloch, Poland on June 23, 1909. He was the son of Rose (nee Lazarovitch) and Moishe Losz, a prominent labour leader in Poland and Canada.

David immigrated to Montreal with his family in 1921. He attended Baron Byng High School where he befriended Irving Layton, A.M. Klein, and his future wife, Sophie Carson.

He attended McGill University from 1927-1931. While at McGill, he helped found the Montreal branch of the Young People’s Socialist League, and founded a campus magazine, The McGilliad.

In 1932, David was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and attended Oxford University. At Oxford, he was active with the Oxford Union and developed a reputation as a leader and a talented speaker.

Following his return to Canada, he practiced law in Ottawa. In 1935, he became the national secretary for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. With the CCF, he helped draft the Winnipeg Declaration of 1956.

In 1943, he co-authored Make This Your Canada with F.R Scott.

In 1950, David resigned as national secretary and moved to Toronto to practice law in partnership with Ted Joliffe. Through his support of Tommy Douglas, David played a role in the founding of the New Democratic Party in July 1961. He was elected as Member of Parliament for York South in 1962. He lost his seat in the 1963 general election but returned to the House of Commons in the 1965. He was re-elected in 1968 and became the federal leader of the party in 1971.

David lost his seat in 1974 and resigned as leader. In his post-political life, he became a professor at the Institute of Canadian Studies at Carleton University.

David was named as a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1977. His memoirs, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs 1909-1958 (Toronto: MacMillan) were published in 1981. He died on May 23, 1981.

David is the father of Stephen Lewis, the diplomat and former leader of the Ontario NDP, Michael Lewis, Janet Solberg and Nina Libeskind.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, journalist, politician, and poet, was born on 13 April 1825 in Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland. He left for New England for the first time in 1842. It was not until 1857, after a return to Ireland and a further sojourn in the United States, that he moved to Montreal. In December 1857 he was elected to represent Montreal in the Legislative Assembly. By 1867 the Irish Republican Brotherhood, more popularly known as the Fenians, were on the rise. McGee opposed them because of their support of republicans and their plans to invade British North America. McGee lost his support in the Irish community and was on the verge of withdrawing from politics when he was assassinated in Ottawa on 7 April 1868. An Irish immigrant, Patrick James Whelan, was convicted of the crime and executed on 11 February 1869. In addition to his journalism and speeches, McGee wrote A Popular History of Ireland (1863), which is considered to be his best work, and poetry which was collected and published after his death.

Thomas Cunningham (Tom) Wilson (b. 1959) is a Canadian rock musician and songwriter based in Hamilton. He is also an author and visual artist. At the age of 53, he learned that he was adopted and that his ancestry is Mohawk.

As a musician, Wilson has a solo career and was also a founding member of The Florida Razors (1981-1987), Junkhouse (1989-1997), Blackie and the Rodeo Kings (1996 onward), and Lee Harvey Osmond (2009 onward). Collectively, they have recorded at least 18 albums.

He is the author of the acclaimed memoir Beautiful Scars: Steeltown Secrets, Mohawk Skywalkers and the Road Home, published by Doubleday Canada in 2017.

The first exhibition of his visual art was held at the Art Gallery of Burlington in 2018-2019.

Seth (born Gregory Gallant) is a renowned Canadian cartoonist, visual artist, and book designer. Seth has achieved prominence in the realm of independent comics for works which often express nostalgia for early to mid-twentieth century Canada.

Seth was born in Clinton, Ontario in 1962. He grew up in Southern Ontario, a region which is frequently featured in his work. Seth attended Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) in Toronto from 1980-1983. During this time, he took on his pseudonym.

In April 1991, Seth launched his comic series Palookaville with Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly. His next project, the autobiographical graphic novel It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken, was published to wide acclaim in 1996 (Drawn & Quarterly). Seth would go on to win two Ignatz awards for the volume, which was listed by The Comics Journal as one of the 100 best comics of the twentieth century.

Seth has since published eight more graphic novels and has contributed illustrations to a wide range of publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Best American Comics, McSweeneys Quarterly, The Walrus, and Canadian Notes & Queries. His illustrations are also in Lemony Snicket’s children’s series and Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe collections (audio recordings and books).

Additionally, Seth has undertaken significant book design projects: in 2014, Fantagraphics Books enlisted him to design the complete collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts. Seth has since designed additional comics reprint series featuring the works of John Stanley and Doug Wright.

Seth has received each of the major American comic awards, including the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz.

Since the early 2000s, he has lived in Guelph, Ontario.

Edward E. Seymour, prominent labour organizer, was born 30 July 1940 in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. He was raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia and attended Sydney Academy prior to moving to Ontario in 1958. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Waterloo in 1974. He is the author of An Illustrated History of Canadian Labour 1800-1974 (1976, 2nd ed. 1980) and Illuminating the Past Brightening the Future: An Illustrated History International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 353 1903-2003 (2003).

Mr. Seymour’s trade union experience dates back to 1962 when he became a member of Lodge 1246, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. From 1970 to 1977, he was the Canadian Education and Publicity Director for the Textile Workers Union of America. In 1977 he was the national representative for the Communications Workers of Canada (CLC). In 1986 he established Solidarity Consulting, a consulting firm for unions. He was also a partner of Resolutions Unlimited (established in 2000), a firm that focuses on the resolution of harassment and discrimination in the work place. Mr. Seymour served many times on arbitration boards for a number of unions.

Stephen Lewis is a politician, humanitarian, global activist, diplomat, and public speaker. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada, was named “Canadian of the Year” by Maclean’s in 2003 and has received countless awards and recognition for his humanitarian work in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Stephen was born in Ottawa on November 11, 1937. He is the son of Sophie and David Lewis, the former leader of the federal New Democratic Party. He is married to Michele Landsberg, author and columnist for the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, with whom he has three children, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, Avi Lewis, and Jenny Lewis.

Stephen received post-secondary education at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Before he could finish his degree, he entered politics and was elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1963 as a member of the New Democratic Party.

Between 1970 and 1978, Stephen was the Provincial Leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. Following his political career, he became involved in broadcasting. He received the Gordon Sinclair ACTRA Award for broadcasting in 1982 and his CBC radio documentaries were published as Art Out of Agony: The Holocaust Theme in Literature, Sculpture and Film (Toronto: CBC Enterprises, 1984).

In October 1984, Stephen was appointed as Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He chaired the committee which drafted the five-year UN Programme on African Economic Recovery and the first International Conference on Climate Change in 1988. In September 1986, the UN Secretary General appointed Stephen as his Special Advisor on Africa.

In July 1988, Lewis resigned from his ambassadorship. He continued to act in a personal capacity as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Africa.

In May 1992, Stephen was appointed as Special Advisor on Race Relations to the Premier of Ontario. In 1993, Stephen joined the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Group on the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing in September 1995.

Between 1994 and 1996, Stephen was coordinator of a two-year study commissioned by the UN on the impact of armed conflict on children, led by Graça Machel.

On October 25, 1995, Stephen was appointed Deputy Executive Director (External Relations) of the United Nations Children’s Fund. He resigned January 6, 1999.

In 1998, Stephen was selected by the Organization of African Unity to participate on the International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events. Between 1999 and 2001, Stephen acted as Consultant to UNAIDS, UNIFEM, and the Economic Commission for Africa.

Between 2001 to 2006, Stephen was appointed as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Stephen is board co-chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a charity he co-founded in 2003 that supports community-based organizations working on the frontlines of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2007 to 2021, he was co-director of the advocacy organization AIDS-Free World which he co-founded with Paula Donovan.

Stephen is the author of Race Against Time (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2005), a publication of lectures delivered during his Massey Lecture Tour.

On July 1, 2006, Stephen was named McMaster University’s first Social Sciences Scholar-in-Residence.

Stephen holds 40 honorary degrees from Canadian and American universities. His first honorary doctorate was given at McMaster University in 1979.

Charlotte Gray is a British-born Canadian author of non-fiction, specifically literary biographies and works about Canadian history. She has published 11 books and numerous articles.

Born in Sheffield, England in 1948, Gray went on to read history at Oxford, graduating in 1969. Following the completion of a post-graduate diploma at the London School of Economics, Gray embarked on a career in journalism, writing for The London Daily Standard and editing Psychology Today (UK edition).

In 1979, Gray immigrated to Canada, where she became a freelance magazine writer. From 1986-1993 she served as Ottawa editor for Saturday Night magazine, contributing articles for monthly issues of the magazine. In 1997 she shifted her focus to book-length works, releasing her first biography, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, to critical acclaim.

Gray’s non-fiction books have won or been shortlisted for most of the major non-fiction awards in Canada, including the Governor-General’s Award for Non-fiction (shortlisted, 1998), the Trillium Award (shortlisted), the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Award (shortlisted), the Canadian Authors Medal for Non-fiction, the Canadian Authors Award for Canadian History, the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History, the Ottawa Book Award, the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book, and many more. Gray’s first five volumes were best sellers, and several of her works have been adapted for television, including Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail (1999) and Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike (2010).

Gray appears frequently on radio and television as a commentator, and in 2004 participated in CBC’s The Greatest Canadian television series as an advocate for Sir John A. MacDonald. Since 2005, she has also held an appointment as Adjunct Research Professor in Carleton University’s Department of History.

Additional noteworthy accolades of Gray’s include honorary doctorates from Mount Saint Vincent University, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, York University, and Carleton University. In 2007, she became a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2009 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

List of Gray’s non-fiction books:

Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King (Penguin Viking, 1997)

Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail (Penguin Viking, Canada and Duckworths (UK) 1999)

Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (HarperCollins Canada, 2002)

Canada: A Portrait in Letters (Doubleday Canada, 2003)

The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder (Random House Canada, 2004)

Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell (HarperCollins Canada and Arcade Publishing (US), 2006)

Nellie McClung (Penguin Canada, 2008)

Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike (HarperCollins Canada and Counterpoint (US), 2010)

The Massey Murder: A Maid, her Master, and the Trial that Shocked a Country (HarperCollins Canada, 2013)

The Promise of Canada: People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country (Simon & Schuster Canada, 2016)

Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise (HarperCollins Canada, 2016)

Sylvia Fraser, novelist and journalist, was born in Hamilton, Ont. on 8 March 1935, the daughter of George Nicholas and Gladys Olive (Wilson) Meyers. She married Russell James Fraser on 30 May 1959. She was educated at the University of Western Ontario and began her career in journalism at the Toronto Star Weekly. She worked there until the magazine folded in 1968. She published her first novel, Pandora, in 1972 and has published several novels since then as well as works of non-fiction such as My Father's House (1987). She has also been a contributor to Saturday Night.

Fraser has been a guest lecturer at the Banff Centre (1973-1979, 1985, 1987-1988), Writer-in-Residence at University of Western Ontario (1980), a member of the Arts Advisory Panel to the Canada Council (1977-1981), a member of the cultural delegation to China (1985), an instructor at the Maritime Writers' Workshop (1986), and Vice-President of the Writers' Development Trust.

Fraser passed away in Toronto on 25 October 2022.

Born in England, Harold Saville emigrated to Hamilton, Ontario just before the outbreak of the First World War. When war broke out he returned to England and enlisted first in the Cavalry and then in the Air Force. He served with the RAF and was shot down, but survived. He returned to Hamilton where he lived until his death in 1950.