Faculty/staff profile
Instructor, Creative Writing and English
PhD, 2001, University of Toronto
M.A., 1996, University of Toronto
Honours B.A., 1995, University of Toronto
Heidi did her degrees in English at the University of Toronto and taught Canadian literature and Canadian Studies there for several years after her PhD; she's since taught primarily at UVic and Camosun, with shorter stints elsewhere.
In her first-year writing and literature courses her goal is to get class members to engage deeply with reading and writing tasks that will provide a helpful foundation for further studies and for the workplace. We work collaboratively and do engaging activities, with lots of space for contributions from learners. Reconciliation and Indigenization are key aspects of 21st century classrooms, and Heidi is grateful to the colleagues at Camosun who work so hard to support these efforts.
As a neophyte mystery writer (two drafts of one novel), Heidi is currently completing a certificate program in creative writing and enjoys the opportunity to learn with/from students in creative writing classes.
Recent academic publications and projects:
Book project in progress: Louise Penny and the Landscape of Canadian Women’s Crime Fiction. Proposal under review by Palgrave Macmillan for the Crime Files series.
“Canadian Shakespeare: Understanding Allusions and Intertextuality in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye and Hag-Seed.” Accepted for Teaching Margaret Atwood, edited by Lauren Rule Maxwell. MLA.
“All Lithe Power and Confidence”: Skateboarding in Michael Christie’s If I Fall, If I Die. In Not Hockey: Critical Essays on Canada’s Other Sports Literature, edited by Jamie Dopp and Angie Abdou. October, 2023. Athabasca University Press.
“The War at Home: Influenza in Kevin Kerr’s Unity (1918) and Alice Munro’s “Carried Away.” Canadian Literature Special issue on Pandemics, vol. 245, 2021.
“‘Viciousness in the Kitchen’: Women and Food in Alice Munro’s Fiction and Mary Pratt’s Paintings.” The Canadian Culinary Imagination, edited by Dorothy Barenscott and Shelley Boyd. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020, pp. 244-73.
Co-editor and co-author of introduction with Sara Humphreys and Micaela Maftei, with special thanks to contributor and co-developer Katja Thieme. Special Section: Writing Instructor, Academic Labour, and Professional Development. Canadian Journal of Studies in Discourse and Writing, vol. 29, December 2019.
“‘Chunks of Language Caught in Her Throat’: The Problem of Other(ed) Minds in Alice Munro’s Stories of Cognitive Disability.” Ethics and Affect in the Fiction of Alice Munro, edited by Amelia DeFalco and Lorraine York. Palgrave MacMillan, 2019, pp. 109-26.
“Specialization, Status, and Stigma: Teaching-Stream Roles in Research-Intensive Institutions.” English Studies in Canada, vol. 43, no. 1 March 2017, pp. 4-7