Myrna Kostash

Myrna Kostash (born September 2, 1944) is a Canadian writer and journalist. She has written for many Canadian magazines including Chatelaine. She has also written a number of non-fiction books. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta and educated at the University of Alberta, the University of Washington, and the University of Toronto. She currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

A founding member of The Periodical Writers' Association of Canada and of the Writers' Guild of Alberta, she served as president of the WGA (1989–90) and as chair of The Writers' Union of Canada (1993–94). She served as Alberta representative to the Board of Governors of the Canadian Conference of the Arts (1996–2000).She is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild and PEN. She is a founding member of the Creative Nonfiction Collective, and served as its president 2006-9. She has also for several years been an executive member of the Board of Directors of the Parkland Institute, an organization dedicated to social research and located at the University of Alberta.

Kostash is the recipient of several Canada Council, Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts and Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) grants. In 1985, she was awarded a Silver citation in the National Magazine Awards and was short-listed in 1997. In 1999 she was a finalist in the Western Magazine awards. In 1988, her book, No KIdding: Inside the World of Teenage Girls, received the Alberta Culture and Writers' Guild of Alberta prizes for Best Non-Fiction. In 1994 she was awarded the same prize for her book, Bloodlines: A Journey Into Eastern Europe. In 1993 she was a participant in the Maclean-Hunter Arts Journalism Seminar, the Banff Centre for the Arts, under the direction of Alberto Manguel. In 2001, her book, The Next Canada: In Search of the Future Nation, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. In 2006, Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan was a prizewinner at the Saskatchewan Book Awards.

Kostash is a recipient of the Alberta Achievement Award (1988) and of the Alberta Council of Ukrainian Arts “Excellence in Artistry” Award, 2001, the Canadian Conference of the Arts Honourary Life Member award, 2002, the Queen’s Jubilee Award, 2002, the Alberta Centennial Medal, 2005, the City of Edmonton’s 2006 Citation Award, “Salute to Excellence,” and the Writers Guild of Alberta Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement, 2008. She was the 2010 recipient of the Matt Cohen Award : In Celebration of a Writing Life, from the Writers'Trust of Canada, the first writer of creative non-fiction to win the award.^[1]

Works

• Her Own Woman (contributor) - 1975
• Long Way From Home: The Story of the Sixties Generation in Canada - 1980
• All of Baba's Children - 1987
• No Kidding: Inside the World of Teenage Girls - 1989
• The Road Home (contributor) - 1992
• Bloodlines: A Journey into Eastern Europe - 1993
• The Doomed Bridegroom: A Memoir - 1998
• The Next Canada: In Search of Our Future Canada - 2000
• Reading the River: A Traveller’s Companion to the North Saskatchewan - 2006
• Frog Lake Reader - 2009
• Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium - 2011

Her work has appeared in:

Still Ain't Satisfied, Toronto, Women's Press, 1982

Women Against Censorship, Vancouver, Douglas & McIntyre, 1985

The Morningside Papers, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1985

Competition: A Feminist Taboo?, New York, The Feminist Press, 1987

Ethnicity in a Technological Age, Edmonton, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988

Out of Place, Regina, Coteau, 1991

The Thinking Heart: Best Canadian Essays, Kingston, Quarry, 1991

Twist and Shout: A Decade of Feminist Writing in This Magazine, Toronto, Second Story, 1992

Kitchen Talk: Contemporary Women's Prose and Poetry, Red Deer, Red Deer College Press, 1992

Twenty Years of Multiculturalism, ed. Stella Hryniuk, Winnipeg, St. John's College Press, 1992

Pens of Many Colours: A Canadian Reader, Toronto, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993

Writing Away: The PEN Canada Travel Anthology, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1994

Imagining Ourselves: Classics of Canadian Non-Fiction, Vancouver, Arsenal Pulp Press, 1994

Let the Earth Take Note: Anthology of the Milton Acorn Festival, ed. James Deahl, Charlottetown, Milton Acorn Festival Publishing, 1994

Eating Apples: Knowing Women’s Lives. Eds. Caterina Edwards and Kay Stewart, Edmonton, NeWest Press, 1994

Why Are You Telling Me This? Eleven Acts of Intimate Journalism, eds. Barbara Moon and Don Obe, Banff, Banff Centre Press, 1997

Ann Harbuz: Inside Community, Outside Convention, ed. Joan Borsa, Regina, Dunlop Art Gallery, 1997

Fresh Tracks: Writing From Western Landscape, ed. Pamela Banting, Vancouver, Polestar Press, 1998

Open Letter: De:Scribing Albertas (Part 1), Tenth Series #2, Spring 1998

Two Lands New Visions: Stories From Canada and Ukraine, eds. Janice Kulyk Keefer and Solomea Pavlychko, Regina, Coteau Books, 1998

Literary Pluralities, ed. Christl Verduyn, Peterborough, Broadview Press, 1998

Arousing Sensation: A Case Study of Controversy Surrounding Art and the Erotic, ed. Sylvie Gilbert, Banff, Banff Centre Press, 1999

Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing from Alberta, ed. Srdja Pavlovic, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 1999

Jon Whyte: Mind Over Mountains, ed. Harry Vandervlist, Red Deer, Red Deer Press, 2000

edge/wise: part II, Canadian Women’s Writing at Century’s End, Winnipeg, Contemporary Verse 2, Vol. 23, No. 1, Summer 2000

Going Some Place: Creative Non-fiction Across Canada, ed. Lynne Van Luven, Regina, Coteau Books, 2000

Wrestling with the Angel: Women Reclaiming Their Lives, eds. Caterina Edwards & Kay Stewart, Red Deer, Red Deer Press, 2000

The Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs, ed. George Fetherling, Toronto, Vintage Canada, 2001

Canada & September 11, ed. George Melnyk, Calgary, Detselig Press, 2002

AWOL:Tales for Travel-Inspired Minds, eds. Jennifer Barclay and Amy Logan, Toronto, Vintage Canada, 2003

Listening with the Ear of the Heart: Writers at St Peter’s, eds. Dave Margoshes & Shelley Sopher, Muenster, St Peter’s Press, 2003

The Wild Rose Anthology of Alberta Prose, eds. George Melnyk & Tamara Palmer Seiler, University of Calgary Press, 2003

Postcolonial Subjects: Canadian and Australian Perspectives, ed. Miroslawa Buchholtz, Nicholas Copernicus UP, Cracow 2004

Edmonton on Location: River City Chronicles, ed. Heather Zwicker, NeWest Press, 2005.

Place and memory in Canada: Global Perspectives, Proceedings of the 3rd Congress of Polish Association for Canadian Studies, Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci, Cracow, 2005.

Big Enough Dreams, ed. Debbie Marshall, Learning Community Press, 2006

Zeitschrift fur Kanada-Studien, Gesellschaft fur Kanada-Studien, Augsburg, 2006

Desire: Women Write About Wanting, ed. Lisa Solod, Seal Press, 2007

She has written for film (notably Teach Me to Dance, NFB, 1978) and for stage: 1985, Edmonton, Workshop West, 1982; No Kidding, Vancouver, Green Thumb, 1988; After the Fall: The Erotic Life of the Left, Edmonton, Catalyst "Write on the Edge" cabaret, 1992; File #3168, Edmonton, Catalyst, 1993. In 1985 she wrote a television drama, Where is Rosa?, for the University of Alberta Drama Lab. Her "Letters From Greece" were broadcast on CBC network, Morningside, in 1984.

Reunion, a radio play, was produced by John Juliani in 1984 for CBC "Saturday Stereo Theatre"; Gregory Sinclair produced The Collaborators for CBC's "Speaking Volumes" in 1989; Kathleen Flaherty produced Within the Copper Mountain (1997), History 605 (1998), The Masked Man in Warsaw (1999), Edith Stein: Whose Saint Was She? (2000), Pursuing Demetrius (2001) Voices from Frog Lake (2005) and Six Things You Need to Know About Byzantium (2007) for CBC radio Ideas.

References

1. ^ http://www.writerstrust.com/Awards/Matt-Cohen-Award--In-Celebration-of-a-Writing-Life.aspx and http://www.ckua.com/common/medialib/376/337416.mp3

External links

• Brief Autobiography of Myrna Kostash
• INTERVIEW: Myrna Kostash on multiculturalism, reconciliation
• Myrna Kostash entry at The Canadian Encyclopedia

Persondata
Name	Kostash, Myrna
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Date of birth	September 2, 1944
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