Elizabeth Waterston

		Elizabeth Waterston April 18, 2022 - February 18, 2024

Elizabeth Waterston, CM, OOnt, FRSC

In 2010 Elizabeth (Hillman) Waterston was appointed to the Order of Ontario. In 2011 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2018 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. She received these honors for her pioneering work in the fields of Canadian, children's, women's, and historical Canadian travel literature. These awards also recognized her far-reaching mentorship of fellow writers. She taught at the universities of Concordia and Western before moving to the University of Guelph where she was Professor Emerita.

Dr. Waterston fused scholarly analysis with her personal memories as student, teacher, and inveterate reader and writer in her recent non-fiction: Blitzkrieg and Jitterbugs, Rapt in Plaid: Canadian Literature and Scottish Tradition, and Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery. With her friend and colleague Mary Rubio she co-edited many books by and about L.M. Montgomery. Most recently she considered Montgomery's writing and re-writing processes in Readying Rilla: Reworking a Manuscript. In 2018 she was co-recipient (with Mary Rubio) of the inaugural L.M. Montgomery Institute Legacy Award. Her final academic project, and the culmination of years of research and consideration, was an analysis of the first 20 poems in A Child's Garden of Verses, the beloved work of Robert Louis Stevenson. Open the Gate will be published in 2024.

After years of publishing academic books and articles and editing learned journals, she shifted into writing novels. Inspired by her winters in a retirement community in Florida, she wrote two later-life romances: Passion Spent and Ahoy.com. These were the kind of novels she liked to read: colorful, warm-hearted, full of modern characters and unexpected plot twists. She was very pleased to know that Passion Spent was being adapted for the stage to be produced as a play in the spring of 2024.

Notes of condolence to the family of Elizabeth Waterston may be sent to: waterston.elizabeth@gmail.com

Video of Elizabeth Waterston funeral, March 9, 2024.