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The Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program, at the University of Calgary, strives to advance the careers of Canadian writers, invigorate the Calgary writing community, and enhance the activities of the Faculty of Humanities http://www.ucalgary.ca/humanities/ and the Department of English http://wcm2.ucalgary.ca/engl/. The Program achieves its objectives through two annual residency programs: one for an emerging Canadian writer, and one for distinguished writers of international stature.

While in Calgary, these writers divide their time between writing and community activities. Community activities include individual manuscript consultations and providing advice to writing local writers, conducting writing workshops, giving public readings, and meeting with school groups.

History

The University of Calgary

University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

’s Faculty of Humanities established the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program in 1993 when Calgary philanthropists Allan Markin

Allan Markin

Allan P. Markin, OC, AOE is the chairman of Canadian Natural Resources Limited and one of the owners of the Calgary Flames ice hockey franchise of the National Hockey League based in Calgary, Alberta.-Education:...

 and Jackie Flanagan gave a $1.3 million donation to the University. The endowment has now grown to nearly $2.5 million.

Since its inception in 1993, the Program has brought to Calgary two Nobel Laureates, Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka, and such literary luminaries as Oliver Sacks, Timothy Findley, Thomas King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alberto Manguel, and Michael Ondaatje, among others.

Complete List of Writers-In-Residence

2008 - 2009
Charlotte Gill

2007—2008
Sina Queyras

2006—2007
Jaspreet Singh

Jaspreet Singh

Jaspreet Singh is a Canadian writer.He grew up in India and moved to Canada in 1990. Singh is the author of the novel Chef , and Seventeen Tomatoes: Tales from Kashmir, a collection of linked stories. He is a former research scientist who holds a PhD in chemical engineering from McGill University...

2005—2006
Melanie Little

2004—2005
Natalee Caple

Natalee Caple

Natalee Caple is a Canadian author of novels and poetry who is based at the University of Calgary where she is working on a PhD.As a published author, her latest publication, Mackerel Sky, has enjoyed American distribution...

2003—2004
Robert Finley

2002—2003
Suzette Mayr

Suzette Mayr

Suzette Mayr is a Canadian poet and novelist who has written three critically acclaimed novels. Currently an associate professor at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Arts, Mayr's writing and teaching is often focused on issues of race and ethnicity in Canadian culture...

 

2001—2002
Eden Robinson

Eden Robinson

Eden Victoria Lena Robinson is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.Born in Kitamaat, British Columbia, she is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations...

2000—2001
Laura Robinson

1999—2000
Richard Sanger

1998—1999
Peter Oliva

Peter Oliva

Peter Oliva is a Canadian novelist who lives in Calgary, Alberta.His first novel, Drowning in Darkness , won the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book Award and was shortlisted for a Bressani Prize. The book is set in the Crowsnest Pass of southern Alberta, and in Calabria, Italy...

1997—1998
Larissa Lai

Larissa Lai

Larissa Lai is a Canadian writer, critic, and professor.Born in La Jolla, California, she grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland. She attended the University of British Columbia and, in 1990, graduated with a B.A. in Sociology. Subsequently, she earned her MA from the University of East Anglia, and...

1996—1997
Rosemary Nixon

1995—1996
Richard Harrison

Richard Harrison (poet)

Richard Harrison is a Canadian poet and essayist, and winner of the City of Calgary Book Prize.His fourth book of poetry, Big Breath of a Wish , was nominated for a Governor General's Award....

1994—1995
Ven Begamudré

Complete List of Distinguished Visiting Writers

2007
Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt

Daphne Marlatt, née Buckle, CM , is a Canadian poet who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia....

, Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott

Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...

2006
Frederick Busch Tribute

2005
Rudy Wiebe

Rudy Wiebe

Rudy Henry Wiebe, OC is a Canadian author and professor emeritus in the department of English at the University of Alberta since 1992.-Life:...

, Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...

2004
Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod, OC is a noted Canadian author and retired professor of English at the University of Windsor.- Academic career :...

2003
Anita Rau Badami

Anita Rau Badami

Anita Rau Badami is an Indian-Canadian novelist. Born in Rourkela, Orissa, India, she was educated at the University of Madras and Sophia College in Bombay. She emigrated to Canada in 1991, and earned an M.A. at the University of Calgary...

, Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was named Toronto's third Poet Laureate in September 2009.-Biography:...

, Louis de Bernières

Louis de Bernières

Louis de Bernières is a British novelist most famous for his fourth novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. In 1993 de Bernières was selected as one of the "20 Best of Young British Novelists", part of a promotion in Granta magazine...

2002
Robert Kroetsch

Robert Kroetsch

Robert Kroetsch, OC was a Canadian novelist, poet and non-fiction writer. In his fiction and critical essays, as well as in the journal he co-founded, Boundary 2, he was the single most influential figure in Canada in introducing ideas about postmodernism.He was born in Heisler, Alberta...

, Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...

2001
Nicole Brossard

Nicole Brossard

Nicole Brossard, O.C. is a leading French Canadian formalist poet and novelist.She lives in Outremont, a former city in Montreal, Quebec. She wrote her first collection in 1965, Aube à la maison. The collection L'Echo bouge beau marks a break in the evolution of her poetry...

, Timothy Findley

Timothy Findley

Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, OC, O.Ont was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.-Biography:...

2000
Gary Burns,
Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

,
Erin Mouré

Erin Mouré

Erin Mouré is a Canadian poet and translator of poetry from languages which include, French, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish to English. Her mother Mary Irene was born 1924 in Galicia, Poland and moved to Canada in 1929. Erin’s father is William Moure born in Ottawa Canada in 1925...

,
Paul Quarrington

Paul Quarrington

Paul Lewis Quarrington was a Canadian novelist, playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, musician and educator.-Background:...

,
Anne Wheeler

Anne Wheeler

Anne Wheeler, OC is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director. Graduating in Mathematics from the University of Alberta she was a computer programmer before traveling abroad. Her years of travels inspired her to become a storyteller and when she returned she joined a group of...

1999
Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue is an Irish-born playwright, literary historian and novelist now living in Canada. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international bestseller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin won the Ferro-Grumley Award for...

,
Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner

Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...

1998
Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was named Toronto's third Poet Laureate in September 2009.-Biography:...

,
Louise Halfe,
Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel is a Canadian Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places , A History of Reading , The Library at Night and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography ; and novels such as News...

,
Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...

1997
Anita Rau Badami

Anita Rau Badami

Anita Rau Badami is an Indian-Canadian novelist. Born in Rourkela, Orissa, India, she was educated at the University of Madras and Sophia College in Bombay. She emigrated to Canada in 1991, and earned an M.A. at the University of Calgary...

,
Rose Scollard

1996
Louis de Bernières

Louis de Bernières

Louis de Bernières is a British novelist most famous for his fourth novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. In 1993 de Bernières was selected as one of the "20 Best of Young British Novelists", part of a promotion in Granta magazine...

,
Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

,
Steve McCaffery

Steve McCaffery

Steven McCaffery is a Canadian poet and scholar who was a professor at York University. He currently holds the Gray Chair at SUNY Buffalo . McCaffery was born in Sheffield, England and lived in the UK for most of his youth attending University of Hull. He moved to Toronto in 1968...

,
D.M. Thomas

1995
Robin Blaser

Robin Blaser

Robin Francis Blaser was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada.-Personal background:Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, becoming a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance of...

,
Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...

,
Keri Hulme

Keri Hulme

Keri Hulme is a New Zealand writer, best known for The Bone People, her only novel.-Early life:Hulme was born in Christchurch, in New Zealand's South Island. The daughter of a carpenter and a credit manager, she was the eldest of six children. Her parents were of English, Scottish, and Māori ...

,
Sir Laurens van der Post

Laurens van der Post

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, CBE was a 20th century Afrikaner author of many books, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, close friend of Prince Charles, godfather of Prince William, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, and...

,
Yevgeny Yevtushenko,

1994
David Albahari

David Albahari

David Albahari is a Serbian writer of Jewish origin from Kosovo, residing in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Albahari writes mainly novels and short stories. He is also an established translator from English into Serbian. He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...

,
Marilynn Dumont,
Thomas King,
Tom Raworth

Tom Raworth

Tom Raworth is a London-born poet and visual artist who has published over forty books of poetry and prose since 1966. His works has been translated and published in many countries. Raworth is a key figure in the British Poetry Revival. He lives in Brighton, England.-Early life and work:Raworth...

1993
Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...