Keith Maillard

Keith Maillard. Courtesy West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Keith Maillard (born February 28, 1942) is an American-born Canadian poet and novelist.

Life

Maillard was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He has lived in various places in the United States and Canada. He attended West Virginia University and was host of a Boston campus radio programme.

He moved to Canada in 1970 and bacame a Canadian citizen in 1976.

In the early 1970s, Maillard worked as a freelancer for CBC radio, contributing pieces to This Country in the Morning, Five Nights, and Our Native Land. He was active in the Writers Union of Canada, served on its National Council for 2 years, and co-founded the Federation of BC Writers.

Maillard studied music at Vancouver Community College, played the Irish pipes, taught recorder and the rudiments of music for the Vancouver School Board and Vancouver Community College, and played bass in the first band formed by Vancouver singer-songwriter, Ferron.

Maillard's debut novel, Two Strand River, appeared in 1976. Most reviewers didn't know what to make of this strange book with its cross-gendered protagonists and weird events, but Two Strand River soon acquired a cult following, came to be labeled "a classic of Canadian magic realism,"   and has been republished twice.

Maillard's next published novel had actually been begun earlier; the book rejected by 26 publishers finally — after having passed through 8 major rewrites — appearing in 1980 as Alex Driving South. In this gritty, naturalistic tale, Maillard introduced the fictional town of Raysburg, West Virginia, where most of his novels have been set. The Knife in My Hands followed in 1981, and its sequel, Cutting Through, in 1982. Then, with a book half completed, Maillard was afflicted with writer's block.

From 1985 through 1988, Maillard applied his writing skills to designing university and adult education courses for the Open Learning Institute. His 5th novel, Motet, was published in 1989 and won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Prof Keith Maillard, Creative Writing

Having taught as a sessional lecturer at both the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University, Maillard was appointed in 1989 to a regular teaching position in UBC's creative writing department, where he has taught every genre except stage writing. He served as Advisory Editor of PRISM international for 10 years. He is a full professor and co-chair of the department, specializing in fiction and poetry.

While at UBC, Maillard began what he considers his mature work – what has come to be known as the “Raysburg Series." Called "a small masterpiece" by the Georgia Straight, Light in the Company of Women was published in 1993 and was runner-up for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. It was followed in 1995 by Hazard Zones, which was included on the Toronto Star list of the best Canadian books for that year, and was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Maillard also returned to his 1st love, poetry, and published Dementia Americana, which won the Gerald Lampert Award for the best 1st book of poetry published in 1994. Gloria (May 1999) was short-listed for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction. The Clarinet Polka, was included in Booklist’s Editors’ Choice ’03 and was optioned by Los Angeles filmmaker Liz Friedlander.

In 2004, he returned to the raw material first published in The Knife in My Hands and Cutting Through and rewrote and reshaped it into the Difficulty at the Beginning quartet, which appeared in four volumes between September 2005 and September 2006. The Toronto Globe and Mail selected Difficulty at the Beginning as one of the top books of 2006, calling it "a work of terrible beauty and grace, a masterpiece fit to contend with the best novels of the last century."

In 2011, Maillard published two excerpts from his unpublished memoir, Fatherless, in Numéro Cinq: "Kilroy, a Writer's Childhood" and "Richland."

Maillard lives in West Vancouver, British Columbia.

Recognition

Awards

• 1990: winner Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, Motet
• 1994: runner-up, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, Light in the Company of Women
• 1995: winner Gerald Lampert Award, Dementia Americana
• 1996: shortlisted, Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Hazard Zones
• 1999: fiction finalist, Governor General's Awards, Gloria
• 2004: West Virginia Library Association Literary Merit Award
• 2005: winner, Polish American Historical Association Creative Arts Prize, The Clarinet Polka
• 2005: shortlisted, Weatherford Award, Running
• 2006: shortlisted, ReLit Awards, Looking Good
• 2006: shortlisted, Weatherford Award Morgantown
• 2006: shortlisted, Weatherford Award, Lyndon Johnston and the Majorettes

Popular culture

The Knife in My Hands can be seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Harvest S01E02 in the school library bookshelf when Buffy, Giles, Xander and Willow are discussing where the Harvest will take place.

Publications

Poetry

• Dementia Americana. Ronsdale/Cacanadadada, 1994. ISBN 0-921870-28-0

Novels

• Two Strand River. Press Porcepic, 1976. ISBN 0-88878-088-5
  • HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 0-00-648143-4
• Alex Driving South. Dial, 1980. ISBN 0-8037-0196-9
  • General Publishing, 1983. ISBN 0-7736-7045-9
• The Knife in my Hands. General, 1981. ISBN 0-7737-0057-9
• Cutting Through. Stoddart, 1982. ISBN 0-7737-2003-0
• Motet. Random House, 1989. ISBN 0-394-22028-5
  • HarperCollins, 1997. ISBN 0-00-648163-9
• Light in the Company of Women. HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-00-223894-2
• Hazard Zones. Harper Perennial, 1995. ISBN 0-00-224397-0
• Gloria. Harper Flamingo, 1999. ISBN 0-00-648175-2; Soho Press, 2000. ISBN 978-1-56947-206-4; HarperFlamingo, 2001. ISBN 978-0-00-648175-1
• The Clarinet Polka. Thomas Allen, 2002. ISBN 0-88762-100-7; St.Martin's Press, 2003. ISBN 0-312-30889-2; St.Martin's Griffin, 2004. ISBN 978-0-312-30890-2
• Running. Brindle & Glass, 2005. ISBN 1-897142-06-4
• Morgantown. Brindle & Glass, 2006. ISBN 1-897142-07-2
• Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes. Brindle & Glass, 2006. ISBN 1-897142-08-0
• Looking Good. Brindle & Glass, 2006. ISBN 1-897142-09-9

See also

• List of Canadian poets

External links

Poems

• Two sonnets from Dementia Americana

Books

• Keith Maillard at Amazon.com

About

• Maillard, Keith at ABC Bookworld
• Keith Maillard at Guide to Resources for the Study of West Virginia Authors and Appalachian Literary Traditions
• Keith Maillard Official website