Dear Mr. Smallwood considers the lives and stories of everyday Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as they navigated what was arguably the biggest political transition of their lifetimes: the entry of the former nation of Newfoundland into Confederation with Canada. Drawing on one of the province's richest archival treasures, the letters written to J.R. Smallwood before and during his time as premier, contributors unearth the hopes, dreams, discontents, and desires of ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.
A collaborative project that brings together archival materials, personal reflections, scholarly essays, and poetic and visual responses,
Dear Mr. Smallwood moves discussions beyond the polarizing figure of J.R. Smallwood and recentres the conversations about Confederation to consider how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians understood themselves and their world at the time of Confederation. Together, these letters, reflections, and essays can be seen as a layered patchwork quilt. The letters to Smallwood--a small sampling of 250 chosen by contributors from an archival collection of thousands--are the colourful swatches that reveal not just the individual voices of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of all ages at mid-century, but also the beating life narrative--the collective autobiography--of this place itself.
Boon, Sonja: -
Sonja Boon is an award-winning researcher, writer, teacher, and flutist. Professor of Gender Studies at Memorial University from 2008-2023, Sonja is passionate about stories and storytelling. She has published on a variety of topics, from considerations of gender, embodied identity, and citizenship in eighteenth-century medical letters, to breastfeeding selfies and virtual activism, autobiographies of infanticide, auto/ethnography and the embodiment of maternal grief, and craftivism in the feminist classroom. She is the author or co-author of five books, most recently, The Routledge Introduction Auto/Biography in Canada (with Laurie McNeill, Julie Rak, and Candida Rifkind, 2023). Her literary work appears in ROOM, The Ethnic Aisle, Geist, Riddle Fence, and Pinhole Poetry, among others. Sonja was principal flutist with the Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon, USA) for six years, and has also appeared as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician with such organizations as the Toronto Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, the Holland Festival of Early Music, and Osaka World Expo, among others. Sonja was awarded the Ursula Franklin Award in Gender Studies by the Royal Society of Canada in 2020, and in 2022 was elected to the Royal Society's College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.
Hallett, Vicki: -
Vicki S. Hallett is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Her work lives at the confluence of postcolonial, feminist, and life-writing studies and she is fascinated by the ways we create ourselves and our places in the world through stories. She is the author of Mistress of the Blue Castle: The Writing Life of Phebe Florence Miller (ISER Books, 2018), and has contributed to journals such as a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, The Journal of Autoethnography, Acadiensis, and TOPIA. She is a mother, and a settler Newfoundlander living in Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) and Nitassinan, Nunatsiavut, NunatuKavut (Labrador).
