Amanda Leduc

Amanda Leduc
Born
British Columbia
NationalityCanadian
OccupationWriter
Websiteamandaleduc.com

Amanda Leduc is a Canadian writer. She is known for her books Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space and The Centaur's Wife.

Career

Leduc's first novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, was published in 2013 by ECW Press. The novel alternates perspectives between Sam, a man who has recently begun sprouting wings, and Lilah.[1]

Leduc is the communications and development coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity in Brampton, Ontario.[2][3] FOLD is Canada's first festival for diverse authors and stories.[4]

In 2020, Leduc's non-fiction book, Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space was published by Coach House Books.[5] The book discusses representations of disability in fairy tales.[6] Disfigured is part memoir and explores Leduc's personal experiences as a disabled person.[7] Leduc was interested in challenging the idea that disability is "synonymous with an unhappy ending".[8] She began writing it after walking in the forest in 2018 and considering how forests, the setting of many fairy tales, are often inherently inaccessible to disabled individuals.[9]

Leduc's 2021 novel, The Centaur's Wife, grew out of a short story of the same name that she wrote in 2014.[10] Leduc originally thought the story would be a novella.[11] Between 2016 and 2019, she re-wrote the novel four times.[10] The Centaur's Wife builds on the themes and ideas of Disfigured insofar as it is a fairy tale that centres disability and difference.[12] The book is dedicated to Leduc's friend Jess, who died in 2019 shortly after the completion of the manuscript.[11]

In 2022, Leduc was a Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer in Residence with the Hamilton Public Library.[13] Leduc's next book, Wild Life, is set to be published in 2024.[14]

Personal life

Leduc was born in British Columbia.[9] She has congenital cerebral palsy and as a young child developed a limp as a consequence of an operation to remove a cyst from her brain.[15] Leduc also has spastic hemiplegia.[8]

Leduc currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario.[9]

Works

  • The Miracles of Ordinary Men (2013)[1]
  • Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space (2020)[3]
  • The Centaur's Wife (2021)[16][17]

Awards

In 2015, Leduc was a finalist for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Fiction.[9] Leduc's short story, "All This, and Heaven Too", was long-listed for the 2019 CBC short story prize.[18] Disfigured was nominated for a 2021 Aurora Award in the category Best Related Work[19] and was nominated in the non-fiction category at the 28th annual Hamilton Literary Awards.[20] It was also nominated in the non-fiction category at the 2020 Governor General's Literary Awards.[21] The Centaur's Wife is a finalist for the Ontario Library Associations' 2022 Evergreen Awards.[22]

References

  1. ^ a b Berry, David (2013-11-01). "Amanda Leduc: 'Fascination with guilt and penance are primal'". National Post. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  2. ^ "The best Canadian nonfiction of 2020". CBC. 2020-12-01. Retrieved 2020-12-06.
  3. ^ a b Aiello, K. J. (2020-02-03). "Author Amanda Leduc calls for making space for the disabled, even in our fairy stories". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2020-07-12.
  4. ^ "Our Team". The FOLD. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  5. ^ "Disfigured". CBC Books. 2020-02-18. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  6. ^ "Amanda Leduc reimagines the power of people with disabilities in fairy tales with Disfigured". CBC Radio. 2020-03-20. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  7. ^ Corkum, Trevor (2020-03-31). "The Chat with Amanda Leduc". 49thshelf.com. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  8. ^ a b Carter, Sue (2020-01-09). "'Princesses are never disabled:' Hamilton author Amanda Leduc takes on fairy-tale culture". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  9. ^ a b c d ""This Was the Perfect Time for Me to Tell the Story" Amanda Leduc Talks Fairy Tales, Disability, and Progress in Her New Book". open-book.ca. 2020-02-11. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  10. ^ a b Laing, Sarah (2021-02-24). "In her new novel The Centaur's Wife, author Amanda Leduc examines grief through an apocalyptic Earth". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  11. ^ a b Carter, Sue (2021-02-13). "A woman with cerebral palsy and a half man, half horse fall in love in Amanda Leduc's 'The Centaur's Wife' — and they're pushing boundaries beyond the book". Toronto.com. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  12. ^ Wiersema, Robert J. (2021-01-07). "The Centaur's Wife". Quill and Quire. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  13. ^ Baleeiro, Beatriz (2022-09-15). "Writers in residence meet and greet at Hamilton's Central Library". The Hamilton Spectator. ISSN 1189-9417. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
  14. ^ Depko, Tina (2022-08-31). "Meet Amanda Leduc, 2022-23 Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer in Residence". McMaster University Daily News. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
  15. ^ Charles, Ron (2020-02-27). "Review | In 'Disfigured,' a writer explores the damaging ways fairy tales shape our view of the world — and ourselves". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  16. ^ Wong, Alice (2020-02-10). "Q&A with Amanda Leduc on Fairy Tales and Disability". Disability Visibility Project. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  17. ^ Porter, Ryan (2020-01-20). "Amanda Leduc's disability justice critique of fairy tales speaks to our own ableist society". Quill and Quire. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  18. ^ "All This, and Heaven Too by Amanda Leduc". CBC. 2019-04-10. Retrieved 2020-07-12.
  19. ^ "2021 Aurora Awards Winners". Locus Online. 2021-10-18. Retrieved 2021-10-24.
  20. ^ Mahoney, Jeff (2021-11-22). "Hamilton Literary Awards finalists announced". The Hamilton Spectator. ISSN 1189-9417. Retrieved 2021-11-27.
  21. ^ Porter, Ryan (2021-05-04). "Francesca Ekwuyasi, Canisia Lubrin, and Amanda Leduc among finalists for Governor General's Literary Awards". Quill and Quire. Retrieved 2022-01-15.
  22. ^ CBC Books (2022-02-03). "Books by Tomson Highway, Mary Lawson & Rivka Galchen among 10 finalists for 2022 Evergreen Award". CBC. Retrieved 2022-08-10.