Anuja Varghese (BA’05) is an award-winning author whose first book, Chrysalis, has been awarded the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers from the Writers’ Trust of Canada and the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. Varghese was recently profiled by McGill News, where she spoke about her experience studying literature and its wide-ranging impact on both her writing and professional career.

The Montreal International Poetry Prize 2024 is open for submissions! Send us your best poems for a chance to be published in The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology 2024. One lucky winner will also take home the cash prize of $20,000.
Our 2023-2024 Richler Writer-in-Residence Heather O’Neill has generously offered to offer a two-part creative writing workshop this semester.
Here is Heather’s description; a short biography is included below.
“We will workshop one another’s submitted writing. We will also do some delightful writing exercises to tap into each of the students’ creative and unique worlds. As well, each of the students will be offered a one-on-one consultation about their submitted work, or just to ask me whatever they find mysterious about the writing/publishing practice.”
The English Department’s Graduate Student Journal, Caret, is accepting submissions for our Winter 2024 issue from now until January 26th, 2024.
Last month, Prof. Alexander Manshel was interviewed for WNYC's On the Media with Brooke Gladstone. They discuss Prof. Manshel's new book and his other recent research on the politics of race when it comes to literary prizes.
From On the Media:

The Department of English congratulates Professor Marianne Stenbaek who has been awarded the prestigious title of honourary doctorate from Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland) in recognition of her research on and with the Inuit. The honour is given to individuals who have made "comprehensive and meaningful" contributions to research and research education at Ilisimatusarfik and who have "worked for the development of society in a considerable number of years." Below is an excerpt from the award ceremony, attended by Prof. Stenbaek on September 29:

MA student Shailee Rajak joins CBC Radio One's "All in a Weekend" this Sunday, September 24th, to discuss her recently published children's book Sita and Helen. Shailee and host Sonali Karnick will be talking about the book, its intercultural value, its foregrounding of a feminist perspective, and the importance of having it read by children of all backgrounds.
More on Sita and Helen:
The Department of English is proud to recognize the following students who have been selected for the awards and scholarships listed below for the 2022-2023 academic year.
(The writing prizes are determined by committees made up of professors in the Department of English, who review submissions with the authors’ names removed.)

Catherine Bradley - Head of Wardrobe, costume designer, researcher, and teacher in the Department of English - was awarded the H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching!
To mark World Poetry Month, the Arts News team spoke to Professor Miranda Hickman (Department of English) and students Anushree Joshi (MA, English), James Jarrett (U3, English and Music) and recent alum Jana Perkins (MA, English) about the importance of poetry and how research and community initiatives such as Poetry Matters are building spaces for poetic discussions both on and beyond McGill's campus.

Cree-Métis scholar Dr. Deanna Reder did not study Indigenous literatures as an undergraduate. At the time such courses did not exist at her university. Propelled by this lack, she began to read outside of the conventional canon, with a keen eye on texts written by Cree or Métis authors. By the time she began her doctoral work in 2001, the field began to shift and a generation of 21st Century Indigenous writers began to be published.

Listen to Professor Alexander Manshel, author of the forthcoming book Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon, in the podcast On the Media. Manshel speaks of the ressurgence of historical novels and their focus on disregarded histories in the segment "How Historical Novels Can Help Us Remember".
Come to a Zoom information session about the Honours Program in English
Find out:

Professors Fiona Ritchie and Tabitha Sparks have both published new books!
- Fiona Ritchie, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble. Bloomsbury.
- Tabitha Sparks, Victorian Metafiction, University of Virginia Press.