Adele Wiseman (1928-1992), author, teacher and social worker, was born on 21 May 1928 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She received her B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1949 where she studied with Malcolm Ross and where she began her life long friendship with Margaret Laurence. Following her graduation, she moved to London, England where she was employed as a social worker (1950), and subsequently taught at the Overseas School of Rome (1951). She returned to Winnipeg the following year and served as executive secretary of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Her first novel, "The Sacrifice," was published in 1956 and was awarded with the Governor-General's Award for fiction. She spent the years 1957 and 1960 in New York City on a Guggenheim Fellowship and, after a brief return to London, she settled in Montreal, where she taught at Sir George Williams University and at McDonald College, McGill (1964-1969). She finally settled in Toronto where she died on 1 June 1992. In addition to "The Sacrifice," Wiseman is also the author of the novel "Crackpot" as well as several plays and the autobiographical "Confessions of a Book Molesting Childhood and Other Essays." She was well respected as an editor and was writer-in-residence at several universities Canada including Concordia, Trent, Toronto and Western Ontario. She was also the head of the writing workshop at the Banff School of Fine Arts.
published
Fonds consists of manuscript and typescript copies of Adele Wiseman's work, clippings and reviews pertaining to her books, personal and business correspondence, financial records, photographs, subject files and manuscripts of work by others and other material pertaining to her career as a writer, teacher and social worker. Fonds is comprised of the following series: Writing files Business correspondence Wiseman family files General correspondence Financial records Subject files Works by others Academic and teaching files Journals, notebooks and address books Loons files Audio-visual records
Donated in 1991, 1996 and 2005.
The fonds comprises the following accessions: 1991-012, 1996-021, 1996-021 and 2005-010. No further accruals are expected.
Related records may be found in the Margaret Laurence fonds (F0341) and the Don Coles fonds (F0125).
Researchers must complete the Access and Use Agreement form prior to commencing their research. The following files are closed until the death of Dmitry Stone: 1996-021/010 (08) and 1996-021/015 (01)-(07).
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