Spanning much of the twentieth centuryโeach decade is introduced by an overview of key events in the authorโs life during that periodโthe diaries vividly illuminate both her intensely personal experiences and her broader social world. The volume also presents four key examples of Staeblerโs public writing: her first published magazine article; her first award-winning publication; the opening chapter of her book Cape Breton Harbour; and her lively account of the Great Cookie War. Must Write: Edna Staeblerโs Diaries portrays an ordinary womanโs struggle to write in the context of her lived experience. โAll my life I have talked about writing and kept scribbling in my notebook, as if that makes me a writer,โ wrote Staebler in 1986. This volume argues that the very act of writing the diaries, with all their contradictory accounts of writerly ambition, success, and conflict, made Staebler the writer she yearned to be.
Christl Verduyn is a professor of English and Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, where she holds the Davidson Chair in Canadian Studies and is the director of the Centre for Canadian Studies. Most recent publications include Asian Canadian Writing Beyond Autoethnography, co-edited with Eleanor Ty (WLU Press, 2008), Archival Narratives for Canada: Re-Telling Stories in a Changing Landscape, co-edited with Kathleen Garay (2011), and Canadian Studies: Past, Present, Praxis, co-edited with Jane Koustas (2012).
Edna Staebler who recently passed away in her 101st year was an award-winning journalist and a regular contributor to Macleanโs, Chatelaine, and many other magazines. She is the author of Cape Breton Harbour, Places Iโve Been and People Iโve Known and the Schmecks cookbook series. Must Write: Edna Staeblerโs Diaries, edited by Christl Verduyn, was published by Laurier Press in 2005.