
Sheldon Currie
Biography
Born in 1934 in Reserve Mines, Cape Breton, Sheldon Currie released his first collection of short stories, The Glace Bay Miner’s Museum, in 1979. Before establishing himself as a writer, Currie spent time at a number of different jobs, including a stint as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force. After his time in the Air Force, Currie attended the University College of Cape Breton and St. Francis Xavier, where he earned a B.A. and B.Ed. He then went on to receive a M.A. from the University of New Brunswick and a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. Before teaching English at the university level—eventually becoming a professor at St. F.X.—Currie taught English at Digby High School. As an academic, Currie has written on Flannery O’Connor and David Adams Richards. As a writer, Currie's work has been published and produced in a number of mediums. Of his work, perhaps the most well-known is the title story of The Glace Bay Miner’s Museum. This story was adapted as a radio play for the CBC and as a stage play by fellow Nova Scotian Wendy Lill, which has been in continual production in the US, Canada and Britain since 1995. Furthermore, this story was the basis for the critically acclaimed film Margaret’s Museum (1995) starring Helen Bonham Carter. Currie’s first novel, The Company Store (1988), was also adapted as a radio and stage play by Mary Vingoe and produced by Mulgrave Road Theatre. Currie himself has also written for the stage and screen. He received a crossover grant from Telefilm Canada that allowed him to draw on his short stories “On Parle Par Coeur” and “Dies Irae” in order to write a screenplay entitled Two More Solitudes. He has also written a play, Lauchie, Liza and Rory, that won the 2004 Merritt Award for best play by a Nova Scotian writer. Currie’s novel Down the Coaltown Road (2003), was nominated for the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction and has been optioned for film production by Black Maria Productions of Toronto. Currie has received an honorary degree from St. Thomas University and has had a short-story award named after him by The Antigonish Review, where he was once fiction editor. Sheldon Currie has retired from teaching and currently pursues writing fulltime. His novel Two More Solitudes appeared in 2010.
Bibliography
Primary Publications
- The Glace Bay Miner's Museum. Ste. Anne de Bellevue: Deluge Press, 1979.
- The Company Store: A Novel. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1988.
- The Glace Bay Miners' Museum: The Novel. Wreck Cove: Breton Books, 1995.
- The Story So Far--. Wreck Cove: Breton Books, 1997.
- ed. The Journey Prize Anthology: Short Fiction from the Best of Canada's New Writers. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1999.
- Down the Coaltown Road: A Novel. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2002.
- Lauchie, Liza and Rory. Winnipeg: Scirocco Drama, 2004.
- Two More Solitudes. Bolton, ON: Key Porter Books, 2010.
Play Adaptations
- Lill, Wendy. The Glace Bay Miners' Museum: A Play Based on the Novel by Sheldon Currie. Burnaby: Talonbooks, 1996.
- Vingoe, Mary H. The Company Store. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1999.
Film Adaptations
- Margaret's Museum. Greenwich: Cabin Fever Entertainment, 1995.
Critical Sources
- Belliveau, George. "Glace Bay to Hollywood: A Political Journey." Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches Théâtrales au Canada. 22.1 (2001): 46-57.
- Birrell, Heather. “Transplanted Conflicts.” Rev. of Down the Coaltown Road, by Sheldon Currie. Books in Canada 32.2 (2003): 10-11.
- Hodd, Thomas. "Shoring Against our Ruin: Sheldon Currie, Alistair MacLeod, and the Heritage Preservation Narrative." Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 191-209.
See also: - David Creelman, Setting in the East: Maritime Realist Fiction (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003) 210-12 (on The Glace Bay Miner's Museum)