Canada’s Early Women Writers

Canada's Early Women Writers (CEWW) is a bio-bibliographical database that includes notable Canadian English-language women writers who published before 1950, their audience and genre ranging from travel journalism and scientific writing to poetry and fiction.

The first iteration of the Canada’s Early Women Writers database was created in the 1980s through diligent work in physical archives and through postal communications. It presented biographical and publication information for more than 470 women who lived in Canada or wrote about Canada, and authored an English-language book or pamphlet of fiction or poetry that was published before 1940. This work became the basis for the enhanced and updated Canada’s Early Women Writers database at the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory.

Directed by Dr. Carole Gerson, this initial project was supported by SSHRC, the University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University, with substantial research and editing by Deborah Blacklock, Sandra Even, Katrina Harack, Marjory Lang, and Carol McIver.

In 2012-16, with additional support from CFI and SFU, the entries were completely revised and updated, and over 300 new entries written, under the direction of project manager Karyn Huenemann with the assistance of researchers Lindsey Bannister, Nicholas Beauchesne, Rob Bittner, Mercedes Eng, Alison MacDonald, Linnea McNally, Kim Mulder, Daryn Wright, and Andrew Zuliani.

We are grateful for the assistance of the staff in SFU Inter-Library Loans, including Nancy Blake, Sonny Wong, Elaine Shu, Vera Yuen, Ioana Liuta, and Ian Fell.

If you have comments or corrections for our website, or would like to contribute as a scholarly editor, please email the Project Director or Project Manager.