Stewart Leo Donovan

1954-

Stewart Leo Donovan was born on 16 December 1954 in the small fishing village of Ingonish, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Upon graduation from Ingonish Beach Consolidated School in 1972, Donovan enrolled in St. Francis Xavier University, where he received his BA in literature. In 1978, Donovan completed his MA at the University of Ottawa, and received his PhD in Anglo-Irish literature and drama from University College Dublin in 1985. In 1985, Donovan accepted a position at St. Thomas University, where he has taught modern literature, drama, film, and cultural studies. In 1994, he became the founding editor of The Nashwaak Review, a literary, arts, historical, and cultural magazine designed to showcase Maritime writers and where Donovan has been a regular contributor of poetry, short stories, essays, and reviews. In 1997, he initiated the Irish Studies Program at St. Thomas University. That same year, Donovan also participated in the founding of the The Film and Media Studies Program at St. Thomas.  Donovan has also published the biography The Forgotten World of R.J. MacSween: A Life (2007), and The Essential MacSween (2008), a selection of MacSween’s poetry. He has published Cape Breton Quarry (1990); The Molly Poems and Highland Elegies (2005); and From Ingonish Out (2012). Donovan’s first novel was Maritime Union: A Political Tale (1992), and he published Wake of the Aspy in 2012. He released In the Shadow of Vimy: Poems New and Selected in 2021.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton