Alice Munro Chair in Creativity

Alice Munro Chair in Creativity
Sheila Heti

 

University College 2414
519-661-2111 ext. 85790

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The Department of English and Writing Studies and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities is thrilled to announce that Governor General's Award-Winning author, Sheila Heti, is our incoming Alice Munro Chair in Creativity for 2023-2025!  Sheila is the author of ten books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? She recently published her second children’s book, A Garden of Creatures, illustrated by Esme Shapiro. In early 2024,  Alphabetical Diaries will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Knopf Canada. The book, which was excerpted over 10 weeks in the New York Times, has been optioned for a television series by Hulu. She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times; a list of fifteen writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages.

Motherhood was chosen by the book critics at the New York Times as one of the top books of 2018, and New York magazine chose it as the Best Book of the year. How Should a Person Be? was named one of the 12 “New Classics of the 21st century” by Vulture. It was a New York Times Notable Book, a best book of the year in The New Yorker, and was cited by Time as "one of the most talked-about books of the year.” Pure Colour is the recipient of the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. In 2022, she was the Franke Visiting Fellow at Yale, and an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Religious Studies.


About the Alice Munro Chair in Creativity

Alice Munro is counted among Western University’s most extraordinary alumni. Her first connection to Western’s Department of English and Writing Studies came while she was an undergraduate pursuing an English major. In 1976, the University recognized Munro’s literary achievements with an honorary degree, the only such honour she has ever accepted. In October 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Alice Munro Chair in Creativity will:

• Lead the creative culture of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, serving as a mentor and a model;
• Participate in graduate and/or undergraduate teaching;
• Focus on the production of creative work, alongside a study of creativity;
• Assume a leadership role between the University and the local creative community;
• Allow the University to enhance and expand the Writer-in-Residence program;
• Provide the University with access to a world of writing and artistic creation beyond Canada, allowing the University to attract international authors and artists as speakers and collaborators;
• Present the annual Alice Munro Lecture on Creativity.