This volume brings together a series of scholarly essays that reflects the authors career-long interest in writing by Jewish Canadian women, in particular work that is situated at the margins of literary and Jewish studies. Collectively the essays show a consistent engagement with issues of cultural identity, specifically how female Jewish identity is constructed in Canadian prose works that span the years 1956 to 2004. As the first book to focus exclusively on writing by Jewish Canadian women, this collection aims to deepen and broaden the scholarly canvas, to situate key representative works within a North American critical paradigm of Jewish literary studies. These essays, which include critiques of two widely known Jewish writers Miriam Waddington and Adele Wiseman, are also intended to introduce readers to lesser known writers: Helen Weinzweig, Fredelle Bruser Maynard and her daughter Joyce Maynard, Nora Gold, and Lilian Nattel. Each writer seeks to investigate the intersecting complexities of her identity as a Canadian, a Jew, and a woman and to critique prevailing notions, for example, of Canada as a country that embraces people of all faiths, of Judaism as open to female participation, and of Jewish women as submissive within marriage.

The New Spice Box includes short fiction, personal essays, and poetry by Jewish writers from a broad range of cultural backgrounds. Fresh and relevant, profound and lasting, this anthology features works by acclaimed short story writers David Bezmozgis, Mireille Silcoff, and Ayelet Tsabari; groundbreaking memoirists Bernice Eisenstein and Alison Pick; and award-winning poets Isa Milman, Jacob Scheier, and Adam Sol. The driving force behind The New Spice Box is the desire to uncover the twin touchstones of original expression and writerly craft, and to balance the representation of genres, styles, and authorial perspectives. Here, authors summon the past as they probe their cultural inheritance and move forward into the future. The New Spice Box shows that Jewish literary tradition, Jewish experience, and Jewish identity can be expressed in innumerable ways.

"Notwithstanding their differing approaches-digital, archival, historical, iterative, critical, creative, reflective-the essays gathered here articulate new ways of seeing, investigating, and apprehending literature and culture." - From the Preface This collection of essays enriches digital humanities research by examining various Canadian cultural works and the advances in technologies that facilitate these interdisciplinary collaborations. Fourteen essays-eleven in English and three in French-survey the helix of place and space. Contributors to Part I chart new archival and storytelling methodologies, while those in Part II venture forth to explore specific cultural and literary texts. Cultural Mapping and the Digital Sphere will serve as an indispensable road map for researchers and those interested in the digital humanities, women's writing, and Canadian culture and literature. Contributors: Jeffery Antoniuk, Susan Brown, Constance Crompton, Ravit H. David, Patricia Demers, Shawn DeSouza-Coelho, Cecily Devereux, Teresa M. Dobson, Sandra Gabriele, Isobel Grundy, Andrea Hasenbank, Paul Hjartarson, Kathleen Kellett, Sasha Kovacs, Vanessa Lent, Margaret Mackey, Breanna Mroczek, Bethany Nowviskie, Ruth Panofsky, Mariana Paredes-Olea, Harvey Quamen, Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Omar Rodriguez-Arenas, Mary-Jo Romaniuk, Stan Ruecker, Lori Saint-Martin, Michelle Schwartz, Stefan Sinclair, Mireille Mai Truong, Stephanie Walsh Matthews, Heather Zwicker.

Over a period of forty years, from 1947 to 1986, Margaret Laurence and Adele Wiseman wrote to each other constantly. The topics they wrote about were as wide-ranging as their interests and experiences, and their correspondence encompassed many of the varied events of their lives. Laurence's letters - of which far more are extant than Wisman's - reveal much about the impact of her years in Africa, motherhood, her anxieties and insecurities, and her developement as a writer. Wiseman, whose literary success came early in her career, provided a sympathetic ear and constant encouragement to Laurence.

The editors' selection has been directed by an interest in these women as friends and writers. Their experiences in the publishing world offer an engaging perspective on literary apprenticeship, rejection, and success. The letters reveal the important roles both women played in the buoyant cultural nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s.

This valuable collection of previously unpublished primary material will be essential to scholars working on Canadian literature and of great interest to the general reading. The introduction contextualizes the correspondence and the annotations to the letters help to clarify the text. The Laurence-Wiseman letters offer a fascinating glimpse into the lives and friendship of two remarkable women whose personal correspondence was written with verve, compassion, and wit.

Toronto Trailblazers explores the influence of seven key women who, despite pervasive gender bias, helped advance a modern literary culture for Canada. Publisher Irene Clarke, scholarly editors Eleanor Harman and Francess Halpenny, trade editors Sybil Hutchinson, Claire Pratt, and Anna Porter, and literary agent Bella Pomer made the most of their vocational prospects, first by securing their respective positions and then by refining their professional methods. Individually, each woman asserted her agency by adapting orthodox ways of working within Canadian publishing. Collectively, their overarching approach emerged as a feminist practice. Through their vision and method these trailblazing women disrupted the dominant masculine paradigm and helped transform publishing practice in Canada.