Carolyn Gammon

1959-

Carolyn Gammon is an author who was born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her parents, Frances (Firth) Gammon and Donald Gammon were co-founders of The Fiddlehead magazine at the University of New Brunswick, her father its first editor. In 1980 Carolyn took a UNB creative writing class with Robert Gibbs, as well as courses with Fred Cogswell. A varsity athlete in field hockey and basketball, her first publications were sport-related articles for The Brunswickan, UNB’s student newspaper. At UNB she earned the Governor General’s Award for highest academic standing. She went on to do a French immersion program at the Université Laval and took English and French literature at the University of Toronto. At Concordia University, Gammon completed her MA in Literature and Creative. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Gammon’s short stories appeared in numerous anthologies. Gammon’s first book of poetry was Lesbians Ignited (1992). In 1992 she was invited to Berlin as an author, and she has lived there since.  In 2002, Gammon edited a collection of her mother’s poetry from the 1940s, entitled There was the Lord Adjusting His Binoculars, the poems were written when Frances Firth was a member of the Bliss Carman Society, UNB’s poetry club. In Germany, Gammon began working with Holocaust survivors on their life stories. The first major project resulted in Johanna Krause, Twice Persecuted, Surviving Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany (2007).  Her second work in this area is The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger (2013).

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton

Archival Material

• Carolyn Gammon collection
  ⌄
  Location

  University of Ottawa

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  Collection 10-154

  Date Range of Material

  [198-] - [1995]

  Extent

  1.6 cm of textual records
  1 object : sticker
  100 objects : buttons
  3 objects : 2 t-shirts, 1 sweatshirt
  13 audiocassettes
  1 object : trophy

  Scope and Content Note

  This collection contains items collected by Carolyn Gammon that reflect her interest in feminist issues and topics, particularly related to Lesbians.