<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=FR-CA link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-CA>Dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-CA><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-CA>Québec playwright, sculptor and novelist Jovette Marchessault died on Dec. 31. She was 74 (1938-2012). She was recognized as Honorary Member of CATR/ARTC in 1999 for her outstanding, original and beautiful body of dramatic works. She was, in fact, the first Québec woman to create a major dramatic feminist oeuvre: <i>Vaches de Nuit (Night Cows), La Saga des poules mouillées, La Terre est trop courte, Violette Leduc (The Edge of Earth is Too Near, Violette Leduc), Anaïs dans la queue de la comète, Le Voyage magnifique d’Emily Carr</i> (Governor General Prize), <i>Le Lion de Bangor, Madame Blavatsky, spirite, Le Pérégrin chérubinique</i>. Often interpreted by Pol Pelletier, she was – visionary poet, feminist, lesbian – the leading pioneer playwright in the emergence in Québec of an impressive cohort of feminist playwrights in the 1980s and continuing until today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-CA><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-CA>Her pride in her First Nations heritage, her profound resonance with the natural world and her close touch with those who had been marginalized for one reason or other by society gave her an artist’s voice of major significance and resonance. Her integrity in remaining true to her own path has been amazing through the decades. She was an intensely practical person closely attached to the material world and, at the same time, a visionary beacon whose death leaves an aching void.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>