lyork

Personal Information

Full Name

Lorraine York

Bio

Lorraine York teaches Canadian literature in the Department of English
and Cultural Studies at McMaster. She has written books on photography
and Canadian fiction, Timothy Findley, collaborative women’s writing,
and most recently completed Literary Celebrity in Canada (University of Toronto
Press, 2007). She is currently writing a study of the Margaret Atwood
“industry,” working on the assumption that anyone whose assistant needs
an assistant qualifies as an industry.

Affiliation

McMaster University

Country

Canada

Personal Statement About Topic

For some years now, I have been, in one form or another, fascinated by
the forms that authorship takes in our culture, at this historical
moment. It began with questioning why, in Western cultures, we assume
that writers create in solitude rather than as writing communities, and
it has mutated into a concern with the social visibility—or
celebrity—of the writer. I have also taught seminars on that one-woman
cultural industry, Oprah Winfrey. For me, thinking about the
intersections of literature and celebrity is one way to reflect the
dual commitment of my department to both literary and cultural studies.

Case studies by Lorraine York

Case study :

Canada Reads and the Atwood Archives

Since its inception in 2002, the “Canada Reads” competition has become a major initiative of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The contest, which pairs five notable Canadians with the Canadian novels that they propose for the prize, has grown in popularity and in media coverage over the years, and has had appreciable effects on sales of the nominated books. This study demonstrates how a document in Margaret Atwood’s archival papers, regarding the 2005 nomination of her book, Oryx and Crake, reveals much about publishing and the media, and particularly illustrates how integrated media enterprises approach book promotion.