1. Alistair MacLeod taught English and creative writing for more than three decades at the University of Windsor, but returned every summer to the Cape Breton cabin on the Alistair MacLeod homestead where he did much of his writing.
26 Facts About Alistair MacLeod
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An account of the journey, written by Alistair MacLeod himself, says the family took their possessions with them, six cows and a horse.
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Alistair MacLeod adds there were few roads at the time, so his great-great-great-grandparents followed the shoreline.
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The family moved on to Edmonton when Alistair MacLeod was five and then to the town of Mercoal, Alberta where his father worked as a coal miner.
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However, the MacLeods suffered from homesickness and when Alistair was 10, they returned to Cape Breton and the farmhouse in Dunvegan, Inverness County, that his great-grandfather had built in the 1860s.
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In 1956, Alistair MacLeod furthered his education by attending the Nova Scotia Teachers College in Truro and then taught school for a year on Port Hood Island off Cape Breton's west coast.
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Alistair MacLeod then went on to receive his MA in 1961 from the University of New Brunswick.
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Alistair MacLeod decided to study for a PhD at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana because Frank O'Malley taught creative writing there.
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Alistair MacLeod said he was used to analyzing the work of other authors, but wanted to start writing himself.
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Alistair MacLeod wrote his doctoral dissertation on the English novelist Thomas Hardy whom he admired.
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Alistair MacLeod wrote that MacLeod read student work carefully and always began his critiques by pointing to the best things about a story before turning to its weaknesses.
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Alistair MacLeod found that his university duties left little time for creative writing.
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Alistair MacLeod published only one novel and fewer than 20 short stories during his lifetime.
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Alistair MacLeod explained that halfway through a story, he would write the final sentence.
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Alistair MacLeod's published works include the 1976 short story collection The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and the 1986 As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories.
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In 2004 Alistair MacLeod published an illustrated edition of his story, "To Everything There Is a Season" with the new heading of: "A Cape Breton Christmas Story".
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Alistair MacLeod is Alistair MacLeod, the greatest living Canadian writer and one of the most distinguished writers in the world.
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Alistair MacLeod's work has been compared and, in some cases contrasted, with other Canadian authors such as David Adams Richards, Alden Nowlan, Wayne Johnston, Margaret Laurence, Hugh MacLennan and Ann-Marie MacDonald.
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Alistair MacLeod was married for nearly 43 years to the former Anita MacLellan.
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Alistair MacLeod grew up in a house on Cape Breton Island that was just a couple of miles from his.
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Alistair MacLeod died on April 20,2014, after suffering a stroke in January 2014.
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Alistair MacLeod was laid to rest in the nearby graveyard where generations of MacLeods are buried.
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Alistair MacLeod was the subject of a documentary film by the National Film Board, Reading Alistair MacLeod, released in 2005.
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In 2008, Alistair MacLeod was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, the same year he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
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In 2015, Alistair MacLeod was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia.
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Alistair MacLeod has been awarded more than a dozen honorary degrees including ones from his alma mater, St Francis Xavier University, Cape Breton University, McGill University and the University of Prince Edward Island.