John Errington Moss is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Notable for the Quin and Morgan novels which he began after teaching for many years at the University of Ottawa, he has lectured on Canadian literature in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

, and the Canary Islands

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...

. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

.

Life

Moss is the second of five children of George Francis Moss and Mary Margaret Clare, both of Preston, now Cambridge, Ontario

Cambridge, Ontario

Cambridge is a city located in Southern Ontario at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.Galt covers the largest portion of...

. He grew up in the village of Blair until age eleven when the family left Waterloo County

Waterloo County, Ontario

Waterloo County, created in 1853 and dissolved in 1973, was the forerunner of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. It consisted of five townships: Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot, Waterloo, and North Dumfries...

 where their roots go back to its earliest settlement in 1802. After a period in Clarkson and Port Credit, near Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, he returned to Preston to complete his secondary education. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Huron College in 1961, a Master of Arts degree from The University of Western Ontario in 1969, a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Waterloo

University of Waterloo

The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...

 in 1970, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of New Brunswick

University of New Brunswick

The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...

 in 1973, where he was co-founder with David Arnason

David Arnason

David Arnason is a Canadian author and poet who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his partner Mhari Mackintosh.-Life:...

 of the Journal of Canadian Fiction and wrote his first critical book, Patterns of Isolation (McClelland and Stewart, 1974).

In 1965 he married Virginia Lavin and they had two children, Julia Clare Zillah and Laura Frances Errington. Divorced after a lengthy separation, he married Beverley Haun and they had one child, Jack Austen (1999, deceased). He and his wife live in Peterborough, Ontario

Peterborough, Ontario

Peterborough is a city on the Otonabee River in southern Ontario, Canada, 125 kilometres northeast of Toronto. The population of the City of Peterborough was 74,898 as of the 2006 census, while the census metropolitan area has a population of 121,428 as of a 2009 estimate. It presently ranks...

.

Career

After working in a variety of casual jobs, as an archivist, and studio director for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

, along with travel adventures such as working as a stand-in for Peter O'Toole

Peter O'Toole

Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

 in Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia (film)

Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...

and hitchhiking through Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

 in mid-winter, he returned to graduate school and settled into an academic career at a series of universities, from Concordia University

Concordia University

Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...

 in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 to the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 and Queen’s in Kingston, and finally the University of Ottawa

University of Ottawa

The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...

 for a period of almost three decades, before retiring as professor emeritus in 2005.

In 2005 he was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences of The Royal Society of Canada. His citation stated:

John Moss has been a major force in shaping Canadian literary criticism and in advancing the understanding of Canada's literary culture. He has authored or edited 24 books and has written over two hundred chapters, articles, papers, review articles, and reviews. Among his most influential books are Patterns of Isolation (1974), A Reader's Guide to the Canadian Novel (1981; rpt 1987), Enduring Dreams (1994), The Paradox of Meaning (1999), and Being Fiction (2001). Between 1973 and the present Moss has contributed to the crucial transformations that have occurred in the history of our critical thought.

The Quin and Morgan Mysteries

The stories are set in Toronto, early in the new millennium. After ten years working in Homicide together, detectives Miranda Quin and David Morgan are a virtual couple who could not possibly live together, yet are incomplete being apart.

Works

• Grave Doubts. A Quin and Morgan Mystery. 2009.
• Still Waters. A Quin and Morgan Mystery. 2008.
• Being Fiction. Short Stories. 2001.
• Invisible among the Ruins: Field Notes of a Canadian in Ireland. 2000.
• The Paradox of Meaning: Cultural Poetics and Critical Fictions. 1999.
• Enduring Dreams: An Exploration of Arctic Landscape. 1994.
• Arctic Landscape and the Metaphysics of Geography. 1992.
• A Reader's Guide to the Canadian Novel: Second Edition. 1987.
• Invisible in the House of Mirrors. 1984.
• Bellrock. 1983.
• A Reader's Guide to the Canadian Novel. 1981.
• The Ancestral Present: Sex and Violence in the Canadian Novel. 1977.
• Patterns of Isolation. 1974.

Books edited

• Margaret Atwood: The Open Eye. Edited with a prefatory essay. 2006.
• At the Speed of Light There Is Only Illumination: A Reappraisal of Marshall McLuhan, Edited with an Introduction. 2004.
• Wacousta. Canadian Critical Edition. Edited with an Introduction. 1998.
• Echoing Silence: Essays on Arctic Narrative. Edited with an Introduction. 1997.
• From the Heart of the Heartland. Sinclair Ross: A Reappraisal. Edited with an Introduction. 1992.
• Future Indicative: Literary Theory and Canadian Literature. Edited with an Introductory Essay. 1987.
• Present Tense. Edited with an Introductory Essay. 1985.
• Beginnings: Revised Edition. Edited with an Introductory Essay. 1984.
• Modern Times. Edited with an Introductory Essay. 1982
• Beginnings. Edited with an Introductory Essay. 1980.
• Here and Now. Edited with an Introductory Essay.1978.
• Raymond Knister: Poems, Stories and Essays. Edited by David Arnason, John Moss and John Robert Sorfleet. 1975.
• Early Canadian Prose. Edited with a Preface. Book Edition, Journal of Canadian Fiction. 1973.

Periodicals and series

• Canadian Critical Editions. 1993-2006.
• Northern Review. Guest Editor, Special Issue: Landscape Writing Landscape. 1998.
• Arctic Circle. Contributing Editor. 1991 to 1994.
• University of Ottawa Canadian Short Stories Series. General Editor, 1988 to 1996.
• Weber-Malakhov Polar Expedition Newsletter. Editor, 1991-92.
• Journal of Canadian Fiction. Editor; Managing Editor. 1971-76.
• Folio. Poetry Editor. University of Western Ontario, 1959-61.

External links

• http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/cww/
• http://www.johnmoss.ca
• http://www.crimewriterscanada.com
• http://www.rsc.ca/index.php
• http://www.writersunion.ca

Canadian writers