Alice Major

Alice Major is a Canadian poet, writer, and essayist, who served as poet laureate of Edmonton, Alberta.^[1]

Alice Major
Born	Scotland
Occupation	writer
Nationality	Canadian
Notable works	Welcome to The Anthropocene, and The Chinese Mirror.

She has published 12 collections of poetry and a collection of essays on poetry and science. Her work has received multiple awards, most recently an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta.^[2]

Biography

Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto, Ontario before working as a weekly newspaper reporter in central British Columbia. She has lived in Edmonton, Alberta since 1981. She has a BA (English, history) from Trinity College, Toronto at the University of Toronto.^[3] Her first book was a prize-winning YA fantasy novel. Since then she has published 12 books of poetry and an essay collection on poetry and science.

She is past-president of both the Writers' Guild of Alberta and the League of Canadian Poets,^[4][5] as well as former chair of the Edmonton Arts Council.^[6] In 2005, she was appointed to a two-year term as the first poet laureate for the City of Edmonton, and then went on to receive the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award in 2017.^[7] During her tenure as poet laureate, she founded the Edmonton Poetry Festival in 2006.^[8] In November 2019 she received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Alberta.

Awards (selected)

• 2017 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award.^[9]
• 2016 Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry, for Standard Candles.^[10]
• 2012 National Magazine Award Gold Medal (essay category) for “The Ultraviolet Catastrophe.”^[11]
• 2012 Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Non-fiction, for Intersecting Sets.^[12]
• 2011 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Memory’s Daughter.^[13]
• 2009 Pat Lowther Award for The Office Tower Tales.^[14]
• 2001 Malahat Review Long Poem Competition.^[15]

Shortlisted (selected)

• Raymond Souster Award, for Welcome to the Anthropocene (2019), and Standard Candles (2016).
• City of Edmonton Book Prize, for Welcome to the Anthropocene (2019), The Office Tower Tales (2009), Tales for an Urban Sky (2000), and Lattice of the Years (1999).^[16]

Works (selected)

Books

• The Chinese Mirror. (Irwin Publishing, 1988)  ISBN 0-7725-1707-X
• Time Travels Light. (Rowan Books, 1992)  ISBN 1-895836-01-8
• Lattice of the Years. Bayeux Arts Inc. 1998. ISBN 1-896209-25-4.
• Tales for an Urban Sky. Broken Jaw Press. 1999. ISBN 1-896647-11-1.
• Corona Radiata. (St. Thomas Press, 2000) ISBN 0-9685339-3-0
• Some Bones and a Story. (Wolsak and Wynn, 2001)  ISBN 0-919897-74-6
• No Monster (Victoria, Poppy Press, 2002)  ISBN 978-1-894603-03-4
• The Occupied World. (University of Alberta Press. 2006) ISBN 978-0-88864-469-5.
• The Office Tower Tales (University of Alberta Press, 2008)  ISBN 0-88864-502-3
• Memory's Daughter (University of Alberta Press, 2010) ISBN 978-0-88864-539-5
• Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science (University of Alberta Press, 2011) ISBN 978-0-88864-595-1
• Standard Candles (University of Alberta Press, 2015) ISBN 978-1-77212-091-2
• Welcome to the Anthropocene (University of Alberta Press, 2018) ISBN 978-1-77212-368-5
• Knife on Snow (Turnstone Press, 2023) ISBN 978-0-88801-768-0

Presentations/Papers (selected)

• Scansion and Science – The Anne Szumigalski Memorial Lecture, Toronto, 2017.^[17]
• A superposition of brains – Provost’s Lecture at Stony Brook University of New York (cosponsored by the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook and the C.K. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics).^[18]
• Numbers with Personality: Ordinal Linguistic Personification – presentation to plenary session, Bridges Conference on Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Education, Culture (University of Waterloo, 2017).^[19]
• Convocation address – University of Alberta honorary degree presentation, 2019.^[20]
• Perhaps the Plaintive Numbers Flow – presented at Bridges Conference on Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture (Online, 2020).^[21]

Anthologies (selected)

• Going it Alone: Plays by Women for Solo Performance. (Nuage Editions, 1997) ISBN 978-0-921833-52-9
• What if...? Amazing stories, Monica Hughes Ed. (Tundra Books, 1998) ISBN 978-0-88776-458-5
• Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing from Alberta. (University of Alberta Press. 1999.) ISBN 978-0-88864-338-4
• Poetry and Spiritual Practice: Selections from Contemporary Canadian Poets (St. Thomas Press, 2002)  ISBN 978-0-9685339-7-0
• Reading the River: A traveller’s companion to the North Saskatchewan River (Regina, Coteau Books) ISBN 978-1550503173
• How the Light Gets In: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry from Canada (Waterford, Ireland, School of Humanities at Waterford Institute of Technology, 2009) ISBN 978-0954028183
• Locations of Grief: An Emotional Geography (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020) ISBN 978-1-989496-14-5
• Waiting: An Anthology of Essays (University of Alberta Press, 2018) ISBN 978-1-77212-383-8

Further reading

• Perkins, Don. "Metaphors, myths, and the eye of the magpie".^[22]
• Querengesser, Neil: "Science and the City".^[23]