A prolific author, dramatist, scholar and poet, Carol Warner was born in Oak Park, Illinois on June 2, 1935. She moved to Vancouver in 1957 after marrying a Canadian, Donald Hughes Shields, whom she met while studying at the University of Exeter, England.
While her young family was living in Manchester, England, she published her first short stories. In 1965, while living in Toronto, she won the C.B.C. Young Writer's Competition for poetry. In 1971 she became a Canadian citizen. In 1975 she completed an M.A. in English at the University of Ottawa.
In the years that followed Carol Shields combined an extremely successful career as an award winning writer with numerous university appointments. In 1998 she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Carol Shields was unequivocal about her Canadian identity; in an interview with Maclean's in 1994 while she was residing temporarily in California she stated, "My Canada includes those landed immigrants and new citizens who live in Canada but were not born here. . . . I immigrated from the United States in 1957 as a young woman of 22 and have been a citizen for most of that time. Canada, for me, is home. I married my way into the country. Yesterday, my husband phoned a doctor in Berkeley to get an appointment and was obliged to listen to an advertisement for the clinic. Canadians would never stand for that. The whole market economy kind of presses on you here. It is such an imposition. On the other hand, the flowers are blooming as we speak.''
Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson identified one of Carol Shields's gifts as being her "extraordinary and loving ability to to take us into the lives of people you meet every day and make us care passionately about them."
The Works of Carol Shields Links are included for works on Sale from Amazon.com: 1972 - Others - Poetry 1974 - Intersect - Poetry 1976 - Small Ceremonies 1976-1977 - The Box Garden 1980 - Happenstance 1982 - A Fairly Conventional Woman 1985 - Various Miracles - Short Stories 1987 - Swann 1989 - The Orange Fish - Short Stories 1990 - Departures and Arrivals - Drama 1991 - A Celibate Season written with Blanche Howard 1992 - The Republic of Love 1992 - Coming to Canada 1993 - The Stone Diaries 1997 - Larry's Party 1998 - Anniversary written with Dave Williamson - Drama 2000 - Dressing Up for the Carnival - Short Stories 2000 - Jane Austen - Biography 2001 - Dropped Threads: What We Aren't Told - a collection of essays edited with Marjorie Anderson 2001 - Thirteen Hands and Other Plays - Drama 2002 - Unless 2003 - Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren't Told - a collection of essays edited with Marjorie Anderson |
Bibliography
Adams, James. "Shields's talents gained world acclaim." The Globe and Mail. 18 Jul. 2003: A1/A6.
Brady, Diane. "My Canada includes....." Maclean's. 3 Jan. 1994: 18-19.
Caldwell, Rebecca and Alexandra Gill. "Readers mourn the loss of Shields." The Globe and Mail. 18 Jul. 2003: R3.
Hughes, Leslie. "The Shields diaries. (Pulitzer-prize winner Carol Shields)" Chatelaine. Apr. 1996: 110.
Martin, Sandra. "She crafted beauty out of the ordinary." The Globe and Mail. 18 Jul. 2003: R2.
Urquart, Jane. "Author's generosity of spirit enriched lives of her readers." The Globe and Mail. 18 Jul. 2003: A1/A6.