Case 4: A Tradition of Creative Writing: Creative Queen’s in the Late 60s

In 1965 Michael Ondaatje entered the MA program in the Department of English at Queen’s, and for the next two years George Whalley acted as supervisor of his thesis, “Mythology in the Poetry of Edwin Muir: A Study of the Making and Using of Mythology in Edwin Muir’s Poetry,” and as a mentor to his developing literary career. Whalley introduced Ondaatje to a number of key figures in the Kingston literary scene, including three men associated with the department who were at the centre of a thriving publishing venture: Tom Eadie (B.A 1968, M.A. 1971) was the editor of Quarry, an annual student literary magazine that was transformed under his editorship into a quarterly literary review that published work from writers across Canada. In 1965 Eadie, along with Tom Marshall and Colin Norman, also founded Quarry Press, its first imprint The Beast With Three Backs, a collection of poems by the three publishers. In succeeding decades Quarry would become a key imprint for a new generation of Canadian writers.