Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

wash up on the shores of biographical research.” I may have – that is for others to judge – but if so it has been in ongoing fascination over the trajectory and utter artistry of Alice Munro’s life and career. When she talked to Peter Gzowski on
Morningside
in October 1982 about
The Moons of Jupiter
– “I worry the story” – Munro also remarked that she hoped she would still be writing, and wanting to write, twenty years from now. More than twenty years, now, in fact. As she wrote in “Material,” my very first Munro story, this fact is most emphatically “A fine and lucky benevolence.” 3
    R.T.
Canton, New York
June 6, 2005
    A Note on the Revised Edition:

In preparing this updated edition, I have added a chapter, revised the epilogue, updated the select bibliography, and revised the index. There are also some silent corrections of small errors and omissions in the first edition. By way of acknowledgement, I thank Alice Munro once more: she has met with me and responded to my various entreaties, as always, graciously and thoughtfully. Her “literary triumvirate” – Virginia Barber, Ann Close, and (especially) Douglas Gibson – has helped these revisions in numerous ways. I wish also to acknowledge Deborah Treisman particularly. She has been prompt and proficient, both for the first edition and for this revision. Others, cited here, have been equally generous with their time and interests. Keeping up with Alice Munro as she continues to write on is both an adventure and a joy and, speaking as one is still doing so, I remain profoundly grateful for the chance.
    R.T.
Canton, New York
December 7, 2010

A Note on the Sources
    All citations from Alice Munro’s fiction are from the first Canadian book publication unless otherwise indicated; book titles are abbreviated. Except for some newspaper articles from the
Wingham Advance-Times
and other newspapers, references to print materials refer to the items in the Select Bibliography. Single-page items are listed in the Select Bibliography only. Authors and titles of book reviews are listed here only when page references for quotations are needed; otherwise, the citations are in the Select Bibliography. Interviews with Alice Munro are mine unless another interviewer is named. Interviews listed as “Interview [name]” refer to my own interviews with others. Regarding archival sources, those items followed by a number alone are in the Alice Munro Fonds, Special Collections, University of Calgary. All others, including other collections held at the University of Calgary, are cited with details specific to the archive or owner. In most cases, a box number is followed by a file number. Alice Munro is abbreviated AM throughout. So too Virginia Barber, VB; Ann Close, AC; Douglas M. Gibson, DG; Charles McGrath, CM; John Metcalf, JM; and Robert Weaver, RW. M&S is used here to identify location of papers in the files of McClelland & Stewart. NYPL indicates
New Yorker
files at the New York Public Library.

References
Epigraphs and Prologue
    1. “A Real Life,”
Open:
80. “Introduction,”
Moons
: xiii. “Golden Apples”: 24. “Everything Here Is Touchable and Mysterious,”
Weekend Magazine [Toronto Star]
, May 11, 1974: 33. “Nettles,”
Hateship
: 167.
    2. “Foreword.”
Anthology Anthology:
ix. “wooing,” “real work”: “Miles City, Montana,”
Progress
: 88. “Alice was known”: Interview George Cuomo, February 3, 2004.
    3. “Material,”
Something
: 43.
    4. “The Ottawa Valley,”
Something:
244, 246. Boyle interview.
    5. “Home”: 152.
    6. “Home”: 143, 152. “Material,”
Something
: 31. “Cortes Island,”
Love
: 144.
    7. “Home”: 134, 136.
    8. AM , August 22, 2001. Audrey Coffin to AM , October 7, 1974: 37.2.25.5. DG to AM , August 26, 1974: 37.2.20.2.
    9. Barber’s initial approach to Munro: Phoebe Larmore to Toivo Kiil, December 22, 1975. VB to Toivo Kiil, January 23, 1975: Private collection. VB to AM , March 11, 1976: 37.2.47.2.
Chapter 1
    1. “Changing Places”: 192.
    2. James Hogg and James Laidlaw, “Letter from the Ettrick Shepherd”: 630, 632.
    3. “Changing Places”: 204, 205.
    4. “Powers,”
Runaway:
330. “Introduction,”
Selected Stories:
xvi.
    5. “Lying Under the Apple Tree,”
New Yorker
, June 17 and 24, 2002: 88. Deborah Treisman to AM , May 30, 2002:
New Yorker
Files.
    6. CM to VB , March 28, 1979, April 9, 1980:
New Yorker
( NYPL ): 916:17, 927:17.
    7. “Material,”
Something:
42.
    8. Jean