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Amanda Leduc

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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

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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

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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

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  • 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

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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

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  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.
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