Born in Heisler, Alberta, Robert Kroetsch published his first novel, But We are Exiles in 1965, and his book The Studhorse Man (1969) won the Governor General's Award for Fiction. Throughout his career, he steadily elaborated his indelible mark on Canadian writing with his fiction, non-fiction, poetry, teaching, and scholarship.

Aritha van Herk teaches Creative Writing, Canadian Literature and Contemporary Narrative. Her novels include Judith, The Tent Peg, No Fixed Address (nominated for the Governor General's Award for fiction), Places Far From Ellesmere (a geografictione) and Restlessness. Her critical works, A Frozen Tongue (ficto-criticism) and In Visible Ink (crypto-frictions) stretch the boundaries of the essay and interrogate questions of reading and writing as aspects of narrative subversion. With Mavericks: an Incorrigible History of Alberta (winner of the Grant MacEwan Author's Award) van Herk ventured into new territory, transforming history into a narratological spectacle. That book frames the new permanent exhibition that opened at the Glenbow Museum in 2007. van Herk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and is active in Canada's literary and cultural life, writing articles and reviews as well as creative work. She has served on many juries, including the Governor General's Award and the C

Robert Kroetsch has spent his life writing about his favourite place - Alberta. On this week's Trailblazers, we sit down with the famed prairie author who received one of this year's Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards.

"Recognized as a classic when it first appeared, the novel's status as one of the finest pieces of Canadian fiction has only grown over the last three decades.... The Studhorse Man, now 35 years old, has far more intoxicating vigour, structural muscularity and dervish-like linguistic brilliance than almost anything being published in Canada today." -- Christopher Wiebe, VUE Weekly

"Always original, at times wickedly funny, and told with unrestrained enthusiasm framed by a post-war, rough-edged Alberta, The Studhorse Man showcases and documents Robert Kroetsch as one of Canada's best living writers." -- Wisconsin Bookwatch

Listed in Best of the West Comparisons list (between Alberta & Saskatchewan) under category "Classic Scene Setters" against W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind. Canadian Geographic, January/February 2005

"In its comic energy, The Studhorse Man recalls Rabelais, Bakhtin and the carnivalesque....This University of Alberta Press publication includes a very fine introduction by Aritha van Herk. Sharply attentive to the novel's patterns, reference field and detail, she situates it with respect not only to Edmonton, the Saskatchewan river valley, local history and literary conventions of the quest and the trickster, but also to her own experience of the local....Kroetsch's writing in The Studhorse Man is typically vital and generous; its presentation of the priapic wanderer and his odd rake's progress through a changing Albertan landscape is marked by comedy, affection and nostalgia." -- Brian Edwards, Australasian Canadian Studies Journal, Vol. 22, No.2, 2004 and Vol. 23, No.1, 2005

"Kroetsch's writing cracks with sarcastic wit, and his book ridicules booming Edmonton's desire to banish the horse in favour of a suburban, car-infested future. The city's highest literary award is named after Kroetsch, so you can't go wrong here." -- Bruce Cinnamon -- Vue Weekly, 20150716