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About

David Helwig

David Helwig headshot

Born in Toronto in 1938, David Helwig attended the University of Toronto and the University of Liverpool. His first stories were published in Canadian Forum and The Montrealer while he was still an undergraduate. He then went on to teach at Queen's University. He worked in summer stock with the Straw Hat Players, mostly as a business manager and technician, rubbing elbows with such actors as Gordon Pinsent, Jackie Burroughs and Timothy Findley.

While at Queen's University, Helwig did some informal teaching in Collins Bay Penitentiary and subsequently wrote A Book About Billie with a former inmate.

Helwig has also served as literary manager of CBC Television Drama, working under John Hirsch, supervising the work of story editors and the department's relations with writers.

In 1980, he gave up teaching and became a full-time freelance writer. He has done a wide range of writing -- fiction, poetry, essays -- authoring more than twenty books. Helwig is also the founder and long-time editor of the Best Canadian Stories annual. In 2009 he was named as a member of the Order of Canada.

David Helwig lives in the village of Eldon on Prince Edward Island, where he is the third Poet Laureate. He indulges his passion for vocal music by singing with choirs in Montreal, Kingston, and Charlottetown. He has appeared as bass soloist in Handel's Messiah, Bach's St Matthew Passion and Mozart's Requiem.

Books by David Helwig

A House in Memory

Last Poems

by (author) David Helwig

The Stand-In

by (author) David Helwig

It Is Always Summer

by (author) David Helwig

Clyde

by (author) David Helwig

The Essential Tom Marshall

by (author) Tom Marshall
selected by David Helwig & Michael Ondaatje

About Love

Three Stories by Anton Chekhov

by (author) Anton Chekhov
translated by David Helwig

Saltsea

by (author) David Helwig

Mystery Stories

by (author) David Helwig

Smuggling Donkeys

by (author) David Helwig

The Names of Things

by (author) David Helwig

Duet

by (author) David Helwig

The Year One

by (author) David Helwig

Atlantica

Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland

by (author) Lesley Choyce, Alistair MacLeod, Joan Clark, Wayne Johnston, Carol Bruneau, Maureen Hull, David Helwig, Herb Curtis, Anne Simpson, Lynn Coady, Donna Morrissey, J.J. Steinfeld, Budge Wilson, John Steffler, Helen Fogwill Porter, Wayne Curtis, Bernice Morgan, David Adams Richards, Joan Baxter & Sheldon Currie

The Time of Her Life

by (author) David Helwig

Home for Christmas

edited by Sabine Campbell
by (author) Ray Guy, Ann Copeland, Robert B. Richards, Maureen Hull, David Helwig, Kelly Cooper, Anne Simpson, Sue Sinclair, Susan Haley, Mary Tunney, Harry Bruce, Bernice Morgan, Brian Bartlett, Syr Ruus, Herb Curtis, Lynn Coady, Ted Russell, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Ephie Carrier, Jess Bond, Patrick O'Flaherty, David Weale, Robert Gibbs, Paul Bowdring, Clarissa Hurley, John Steffler, Wayne Johnston & Mary Jane Losier

Close to the Fire

by (author) David Helwig