Born in Seattle, Washington in 1938, Ruth Roach Pierson spent the year 1955/56 as a highschool exchange student in Braunschweig, Germany. She trained as an academic historian at the University of Washington and Yale, writing her Ph.D. thesis on "German Jewish Identity in the Weimar Republic." Ruth started teaching European history at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1970, shifting to women's history and feminist studies after being hired at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Eduction/U of T in 1980. In 1997/98 she was offered the Maria Jahoda Guest Professorship in Women's Studies at the Ruhr Universitaet Bochum. Her best known academic publication is "They're Still Women After All": The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (McClelland and Stewart, 1986). Ruth began the turn from history to poetry in 1993. Her poems have appeared in Arc, C.V.2, Grain, The Literary Review of Canada, The Malahat Review, Pagitica, Pottersfield Portfolio, Prism International, Room of One's Own, and the League of Canadian Poets' anthologies Vintage 1999 and Vintage 2000. On the poetry shortlist of This Magazine's 2001 Great Canadian Literary Hunt, she won second prize in the Word: Toronto's Literary Calendar Poetry Contest of 2001. Where No Window Was is her first book of poems. She lives in Toronto with her partner and their two cats, Haiku and Orange Roughy. /P>
Awards
Word: Toronto's Literary Calendar Poetry Contest, 2001. Second Prize.
Selected Publications
Where No Window Was (BuschekBooks, 2002) ISBN 1-894543-08-4.
Selected Anthologies
Not To Rest in Silence: A Celebration of People's Poetry (UnMon Northland, 1996).
Vintage 1999: Poems from the National Poetry Contest (Ronsdale Press, 1999).
The Edges of Time: A Celebration of Canadian Poetry (Seraphim Editions, 1999).
Vintage 2000 Poems from the National Poetry Contest (Ronsdale Press, 2000).
Books in Print
Pierson, Ruth Roach
Where No Window Was (BuschekBooks, 2002) ISBN 1-894543-08-4, $14.95.
"They're Still Women After All": The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (McClelland and Stewart, 1986) ISBN 0-7710-6958-8.
Writing Women's History: International Perspectives, Co-edited History Anthology (Macmillan, 1991) ISBN 0-333-54160-X
Canadian Women's Issues. Vol I: Strong Voices, Co-authored Documentary History (James Lorimer, 1993) ISBN 1-55028-415-2.
Canadian Women's Issues. Vol II: Bold Visions, Co-authored Documentary History (James Lorimer, 1995) ISBN 1-55028-428-2.
Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race, Co-edited History Anthology (Indiana University Press, 1998) ISBN 0-253-21191-3
Ruth Roach Pierson, 258 Indian Road, Toronto, ON M6R 2X2 416-766-8946.
rrpierson@oise.utoronto.ca