View source for Sandra Birdsell

{{short description|Canadian novelist and short story writer of Métis and Mennonite}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name             = Sandra Louise Birdsell
| image            = 
| caption          = 
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_date       = {{Birth date and age|1942|04|22|mf=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Hamiota, Manitoba]], Canada
| death_date       = 
| death_place      = 
| occupation       = Writer
| period           = 
| genre            = 
| subject          = 
| movement         = 
| notableworks     = The Russländer, Waiting for Joe
| spouse           = 
| partner          = 
| children         = 3
| relatives        = 
| signature        = 
}}
'''Sandra Louise Birdsell''', [[Order of Canada|CM]] (née '''Bartlette''') (born 22 April 1942)<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Boyd |first1=Colin |last2=Grandy |first2=Karen |last3=Skelly |first3=Julia |date=2018-12-04 |title=Sandra Birdsell |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sandra-birdsell |access-date=2023-05-21 |website=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |language=en}}</ref> is a [[Canadian]] [[novelist]] and [[short story]] writer of [[Métis people (Canada)|Métis]] and [[Mennonite]] 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|Morris]], [[Manitoba]], where the family moved after her father joined the army in 1943. Her father was a French-speaking [[Cree]] Métis born in Canada and her mother was a [[Plautdietsch language|Low-German speaking]] [[Mennonite]] who was born in Russia.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ripley|first= Gordon|title= Who's who in Canadian Literature|location= Teeswater|publisher= Reference Press|year= 1997}}</ref>  When Birdsell was six and a half, her sister died from [[leukemia]], 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.<ref>Lecker, Robert, Jack David and Ellen Quigley, eds. ''Canadian Writers and their Works: Fiction Series''. Vol 12. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995. Print.</ref>

Her hometown of [[Morris, Manitoba|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]], where she studied under [[Robert Kroetsch]]. In 1996, she moved to [[Regina, Saskatchewan|Regina]], [[Saskatchewan]], and currently resides in [[Ottawa]], [[Ontario]].

At the age of thirty-five, she enrolled in [[Creative Writing]] 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]] writer in residence at the University of Winnipeg.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/cms-filesystem-action?file=pdfs%2Fmedia-releases%2Frelease-070206-2.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2022-02-17 |archive-date=2016-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175603/http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/cms-filesystem-action?file=pdfs%2Fmedia-releases%2Frelease-070206-2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 2010, Birdsell was appointed a Member of the [[Order of Canada]] and in 2012 she was invested with [[Saskatchewan Order of Merit]] (SOM).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=13725&lan=eng|title=The Governor General of Canada|first=The Office of the Secretary to the Governor|last=General|date=20 September 2017 }}</ref>

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 [[Mennonite]] mother Mika and their [[Métis]] 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 of the North|Red River]]. where Birdsell spent her childhood.<ref>Heath, J., "Sandra Birdsell'.''Profiles in Canadian Literature'' 8. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991. {{ISBN|9781550021462}}</ref> The source for the name Agassiz is [[Lake Agassiz]], an enormous glacial lake that around 13,000 years ago covered much of what are now [[Manitoba]], northwestern [[Ontario]], northern [[Minnesota]], eastern [[North Dakota]], and [[Saskatchewan]].<ref>{{cite journal| last1 = Fisher| first1 = Timothy G.| last2 = Smith| first2 = Derald G.| last3 = Andrews| first3 = John T.| title = Preboreal oscillation caused by a glacial Lake Agassiz flood| journal = Quaternary Science Reviews| volume = 21| issue = 2002| pages = 873–78| year = 2002| url = http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/fisher/Fisher/Publications_files/Fisher_etal_QSR02.pdf| doi = 10.1016/S0277-3791(01)00148-2| access-date = 2018-04-07| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140222170725/http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/fisher/Fisher/Publications_files/Fisher_etal_QSR02.pdf| archive-date = 2014-02-22| df = dmy-all| bibcode = 2002QSRv...21..873F}}, at page 874.</ref> Lake Agassiz is a controlling metaphor for the stories ... representing memory and ancestry". While the [[1950 Red River flood|devastating flood]] that happened in Morris in 1950 "is a related image that reverberates throughout the text".<ref>Heath, J., "Sandra Birdsell".</ref>

1984 ''Night Travellers'' received the [[Gerald Lampert Award]] from [[League of Canadian Poets]]. 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.<ref name="uregina">{{cite web|url=https://esask.uregina.ca/entry/birdsell_sandra_1942-.jsp|author=Cory Toth - Encyclopedia Of Saskatchewan|title=The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan {{pipe}} Details|website=esask.uregina.ca|access-date=2023-01-09}}</ref>

==== 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.<ref name="sandrabirdsell">{{cite web|url=https://sandrabirdsell.com/bookshelf/the-chrome-suite/|website=sandrabirdsell.com|title=The Chrome Suite « Sandra Birdsell |access-date=2023-01-09}}</ref>

==== ''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,<ref>[[Leo Tolstoy]]'s death is mention on page 14: he died November, 1910.</ref> until she, her husband, two sisters, and grandparents emigrated to Canada in 1923. Katya was born in 1902.<ref>Aged 8, page 7.</ref>

The story begins with the family living on the prosperous Mennonite estate of Abram Suddermann in [[Ukraine]], 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 [[Russian Mennonite|German-speaking Mennonites]] for [[colonization]]. Chortitza was founded in 1789 by [[Plautdietsch language|Plautdietsch]]-speaking  Mennonite settlers from [[West Prussia]], and consisted of many villages. It was the first of many Mennonite settlements in the [[Russian Empire]].

Life then becomes much harder when [[World War I]] 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 Revolution|February]] and [[October Revolution]]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]]".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/the-carillon/local/MHV-exhibit-delves-into-Russlander-migration--510677541.html|title = Jun 2019: MHV exhibit delves into Russländer migration|newspaper = Winnipeg Free Press|date = 2 June 2019|last1 = Ross|first1 = Jordan}}</ref>

== Recognition ==
=== Prizes and honours ===
*1984 [[Gerald Lampert Award]] from League of Canadian Poets, 1984, for ''Night Travellers''
*1990 [[Amazon.ca First Novel Award|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, [[Forest of Reading#Award programs|Silver Birch Award]]; Saskatchewan Children's Literature Award, for ''The Town That Floated Away''
*2001 Shortlist, [[Giller Prize]] (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, [[2010 Governor General's Awards|Governor General's Award]] for [[Governor General's Award for English-language fiction|English fiction]] (''Waiting for Joe'')<ref>[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/emma-donoghue-kathleen-winter-make-gg-short-list/article1754896/ "Emma Donoghue, Kathleen Winter make GG short list"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101020024424/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/emma-donoghue-kathleen-winter-make-gg-short-list/article1754896/ |date=2010-10-20 }}. ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'', October 13, 2010.</ref>
*Juno Award nomination for radio play, ''The Town That Floated Away"<ref name="About Sandra Birdsell">{{cite web |title=About Sandra « Sandra Birdsell |url=https://sandrabirdsell.com/about-sandra/ |url-status=usurped |access-date=2023-01-09 |website=}}</ref>''

=== Awards ===
*Marion Engel Award for meritorious achievements of a woman writer in mid-career.<ref name="sandrabirdsell.com">{{cite web |last=Birdsell |first=Sandra |title=Sandra Birdsell |url=https://sandrabirdsell.com |url-status=usurped |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref>
*The Joseph S. Stauffer Prize, The Canadian Council 1992, for meritorious achievements in the arts.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sandra Birdsell |url=https://sandrabirdsell.com |url-status=usurped |archive-date=}}</ref>
*[[Juno Award]] nomination for radio play, ''The Town that Floated Away''.<ref name="sandrabirdsell.com"/>
*National Magazine Award and nomination for [[short fiction]].<ref name="sandrabirdsell.com"/>
*45 Below Award, by The Canadian Book Information Center. Chosen as one of ten most promising below the age of 45.<ref name="sandrabirdsell.com"/>
*Awarded writing grant from The Manitoba Arts Council, The [[Canada Council|Canadian Council]] and the [[Saskatchewan Arts Board]].<ref name="sandrabirdsell.com"/>
*Nominee for 2010 Saskatchewan Book Award Shortlists: Fiction Award. Waiting for Joe ([[Random House Canada]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2010/10/18/2010-saskatchewan-book-awards-shortlists/ |title=2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards shortlists |access-date=2010-11-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101023030904/http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2010/10/18/2010-saskatchewan-book-awards-shortlists/ |archive-date=2010-10-23 }}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|viaf=94917769 }}

===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]]
*''Waiting for Joe'' (2010). [[Random House]]

====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.<ref name="About Sandra Birdsell"/><ref name="umanitoba">{{cite web|url=https://umanitoba.ca/outreach/canlit/Birdsell.pdf|date=2004-01-22|title=University of Manitoba|author=Dave Gaertner |access-date=2023-01-09}}</ref>

* ''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.

== Archives ==
There is Sandra Birdsell archives at [https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/collectionsearch/Pages/collectionsearch.aspx?q=sandra%20birdsell&DataSource=Archives& Library and Archives Canada].

==References==

{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sandra-birdsell/ Sandra Birdsell's] entry in [[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]

{{Amazon.ca First Novel Award}}
{{Gerald Lampert Award}}
{{Marian Engel Award}}
{{Authority control}}

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