Sandra Louise Birdsell, CM (née Bartlette) (born 22 April 1942) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

and

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

writer of

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

and

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

heritage from Morris, Manitoba.

Life and career

Born in Hamiota, Manitoba, Birdsell was the fifth of eleven children. She lived most of her early life in Morris,

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, where the family moved after her father joined the army in 1943. Her father was a French-speaking

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

Métis born in Canada and her mother was a Low-German speaking

who was born in Russia. When Birdsell was six and a half, her sister died from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

, which left a four-year gap between her and her next older sister. Her loneliness led her to ponder by herself to the nearby parks and rivers allowing her imagination to go wild. Her hometown of Morris experienced a major flood in 1950. Her first three stories in ''Night Travellers'' are based on that flood. Birdsell left home at the age of fifteen, where she studied at the University of Winnipeg and the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

, where she studied under Robert Kroetsch. In 1996, she moved to Regina,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, and currently resides in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. At the age of thirty-five, she enrolled in

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

at the University of Winnipeg. Five years later, Turnstone Press published her first book, ''Night Travellers''. In January 2007, Birdsell began a four-month term as the

Carol Shields Carol Ann Shields (née Warner; June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel ''The Stone Diaries'', which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as t ...

writer in residence at the University of Winnipeg. In 2010, Birdsell was appointed a Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

and in 2012 she was invested with Saskatchewan Order of Merit (SOM). She is a mother to three children and a grandmother to four children.

Publications

Short stories

''Night Travellers''

Birdsell's first book, a collections of interconnected short stories, ''Night Travellers''(1982), is set in the imaginary Manitoba town of Agassiz, and concerns the large Lafreniere family: the teenaged sisters Betty, Lureen and Truda, their

mother Mika and their

father Maurice and the girls’ maternal grandparents, Oma and Opa Thiessen. Agassiz is based on the flood-prone town of Morris, on the banks of the Red River. where Birdsell spent her childhood. The source for the name Agassiz is

Lake Agassiz Lake Agassiz ( ) was a large proglacial lake that existed in central North America during the late Pleistocene, fed by meltwater from the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet at the end of the last glacial period. At its peak, the lake's area wa ...

, an enormous glacial lake that around 13,000 years ago covered much of what are now

, northwestern

, northern

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, eastern

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

, and

. Lake Agassiz is a controlling metaphor for the stories ... representing memory and ancestry". While the devastating flood that happened in Morris in 1950 "is a related image that reverberates throughout the text". 1984 ''Night Travellers'' received the

Gerald Lampert Award The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the best volume of poetry published by a first-time poet. It is presented in honour of poetry promoter Gerald Lampert. Each winner receive ...

from

League of Canadian Poets The League of Canadian Poets (LCP), founded in 1966, is a national non-profit arts service organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The organization acts as the national association of professional and aspiring poets in Canada. The League co ...

. Usually this its awarded for a first book of poetry.

''Ladies of the House''

Birdsell's second collection, from 1984, is a sequel collection to ''Night Travellers'' that the focuses on the Laftenierre family women from Agassiz and their women friends, though most of the stories ae set in Winnipeg. In 1987 it was republished with ''Night Travellers'', in one volume called ''Agassiz Stories''. An American edition, titled ''Agassiz: A Novel in Stories'', appeared in 1991 (Minneapolis: Milkweed).

Children's literature

''The Town That Floated Away'' (1997) was influenced by Birdsell's experience as a child of the 1950 flood in Morris, and narrates the adventures of young Virginia Potts after she is left behind when her town floats away. Birdsell also wrote ''A Prairie Boy’s Winter'', a one act play for children, which was co-written and produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange, in 1986.

Novels

''The Missing Child''

Birdsell's first novel, published in 1989, is "an evocative magic realist portrait of the fictional town of Agassiz", which won the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award.

Chrome Suite

Birdsell's second novel was published in 1992, and covers four decades of script-writer Amy Barber's life: from an extraordinarily hot summer in a small Manitoba town in 1950; "to the 1960s and the 1970s, when Amy marries, goes to live in the city, and begins to have reason to fear for her young son"; to the present, with Amy traveling from Toronto to Winnipeg with her young Polish, film-maker lover.

''The Russländer''

Published in 2001, this is Birdsell's third novel, and it explores Birdsell's own family history. The word ''Russländer'' means "Russians" in German and her mother and maternal grandparents were Mennonite emigrants from Russia. It was published as ''Katya'' in the US. It is the story of Katherine (Katya) Vogt, and her Mennonite family's life in Russia from the end of 1910, until she, her husband, two sisters, and grandparents emigrated to Canada in 1923. Katya was born in 1902. The story begins with the family living on the prosperous Mennonite estate of Abram Suddermann in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, where Katya's father is the overseer. They are under the protection of the Tsar whose wife is German. This is part of the Chortitza Colony, land granted to German-speaking Mennonites for

colonization 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...

. Chortitza was founded in 1789 by

Plautdietsch Plautdietsch () or Mennonite Low German is a Low Prussian dialect of East Low German with Dutch influence that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia. The word ''Plautdietsch'' translates to "fl ...

-speaking Mennonite settlers from

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...

, and consisted of many villages. It was the first of many Mennonite settlements in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Life then becomes much harder when

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

begins and there is suspicion as to the loyalty of the Mennonites because they speak German. Life then eases when where the area is occupied by Austrian and German soldiers. However, Russia falls into chaos when they leave in 1917, with the

February February is the second month of the year in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars. The month has 28 days in common years and 29 in leap years, with the February 29, 29th day being called the ''leap day''. February is the third a ...

and

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

s. The Russian workers on the estate take the bloody revenge on the Mennonites. Katya's parents and her siblings, but for two sisters are brutally murdered. After years of poverty and near-starvation. Katya, her husband, sisters, and grandparents eventually emigrate to Canada in 1923, to settle in Manitoba: "Between 1923 and 1930, nearly 25,000 Mennonites fled violence that erupted in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Recognition

Prizes and honours

*1984

from League of Canadian Poets, 1984, for ''Night Travellers'' *1990 Books in Canada First Novel Award (for ''The Missing Child'') *1992 Shortlist, Governor General's Award for English-language fiction (for ''The Chrome Suite'') *1993 Marian Engel Award *1997 Shortlist, Governor General's Award for Fiction (for ''The Two-Headed Calf'') *1997 Shortlist, Silver Birch Award; Saskatchewan Children's Literature Award, for ''The Town That Floated Away'' *2001 Shortlist,

Giller Prize The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005-2023) is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried co ...

(for ''The Russländer'') *2001 Saskatchewan Book of the Year, Best Saskatchewan Fiction and City of Regina (for ''The Russländer'') *2007 Longlist, International Dublin Literary Award (for ''Children of the Day'') *2007 Saskatchewan Best Fiction Award (for ''Children of the Day'') *2010 Shortlist,

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

for English fiction (''Waiting for Joe'') *Juno Award nomination for radio play, ''The Town That Floated Away"

Awards

*Marion Engel Award for meritorious achievements of a woman writer in mid-career. *The Joseph S. Stauffer Prize, The Canadian Council 1992, for meritorious achievements in the arts. *

Juno Award The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's mu ...

nomination for radio play, ''The Town that Floated Away''. *National Magazine Award and nomination for short fiction. *45 Below Award, by The Canadian Book Information Center. Chosen as one of ten most promising below the age of 45. *Awarded writing grant from The Manitoba Arts Council, The Canadian Council and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. *Nominee for 2010 Saskatchewan Book Award Shortlists: Fiction Award. Waiting for Joe (

Random House Canada Random House of Canada was the Canadian distributor for Random House, Inc. from 1944 until 2013. On July 1, 2013, it amalgamated with Penguin Canada to become Penguin Random House Canada. Company history Random House of Canada was established i ...

Bibliography

Novels

*''The Missing Child'' (1989). Lester & Orpen Dennys *''The Chrome Suite'' (1992). McClelland & Stewart *''The Russländer'' (2001). McClelland & Stewart; as ''Katya'' in the US in 2004 *''Children of the Day'' (2005).

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

*''Waiting for Joe'' (2010).

Children

*''The Town that Floated Away'' (illustrations by Helen Flook) (1997). HarperCollins. See 1992 radio play below.

Short stories

*''Night Travellers''. Turnstone Press, 1982 *''Ladies of the House''. Turnstone Press, 1984 *''Agassiz Stories'' (combined the two earlier collections); republished in the US, as ''Agassiz: A Novel in Stories''. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 1991. **''Agassiz''. Traduit de l'anglais par Maryse Trudeau. Montréal : Du Roseau, 1990. *''The Two-Headed Calf''. McClelland & Stewart, 1997

Scripts

Birdsell has also written for television, theatre and radio. * ''The Waiting Time''. 60 minute radio drama commissioned by CBC produced in Mar. 1993. * ''Another View of North''. 60 minute radio drama commissioned by CBC and produced in Jun. 1992. * ''The Town That Floated Away''. 30 minute radio drama produced by Barbara Nicol, CBC, Sept. 1992. Released on CD and cassette, BMG records * ''Niagara Falls''. A 45-minute film script as part of a trilogy, ''In Good Season''. Produced in a 30-minute format for the CBC ''The Way We Are''. series. West End Productions Inc. * ''Summer Storm''. Novina Motion Pictures. 30 minute film script produced for a CBC ''Family Pictures'' series. * ''Falling In Love''. 30 minute film script as part of a trilogy, ''In Good Season''. West End Productions Inc. * ''Places Not Our Own''. 60 minute drama for the mini series, ''Daughters of the Country''. National Film Board.

Theatre

* ''A Prairie Boy’s Winter''. A one act play for children. Co-written and produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange, 1986. * ''The Revival''. A Two Act Play. Commissioned by Prairie Theatre Exchange and produced in 1987.

References

External links

*
Sandra Birdsell's
entry in

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; ) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with financial support by the federal Department of Canadian Heritage and Society of Com ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birdsell, Sandra 1942 births Living people Canadian Métis women 20th-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian people of German descent Canadian people of Métis descent Canadian women novelists Writers from Regina, Saskatchewan Writers from Winnipeg Novelists from Manitoba Members of the Order of Canada Members of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit Mennonite writers Métis writers 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Canadian women short story writers 20th-century Canadian short story writers 21st-century Canadian short story writers Amazon.ca First Novel Award winners Manitoba Book Awards winners Novelists from Saskatchewan

Life and career

Publications

Short stories

''Night Travellers''

''Ladies of the House''

Children's literature

Novels

''The Missing Child''

Chrome Suite

''The Russländer''

Recognition

Prizes and honours

Awards

Bibliography

Novels

Children

Short stories

Scripts

Theatre

Archives

References

External links