File f20 - Into the Midst of It: The Legacy of Bronwen Wallace (2 of 2)

Born in 1944, Joanne Page (neé Bowels) graduated from Carleton University with a B.A in English Literature in the 1960s. She also attended the New School of Art in Toronto during that decade. Page held a number of positions over the years. She worked at a women’s shelter in rural Ontario, conducted research for the federal government on gender and immigrant women’s services, taught creative writing and was Associate Editor of Quarry magazine. Page was the successor to Bronwen Wallace, a close friend, writing In Other Words, a column on contemporary feminist issues in the Kingston Whig Standard for five years. In 1992 after Wallace’s death, Page edited the published collection of Wallace’s essays Arguments with the World.

In 1993, Page was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. It is also the year she published her first anthology of poems and drawings, The River and The Lake. The book chronicled "the movement of one woman's life between personal artistic solitude and fully engaged political action while she wrestles with the agony of cancer and argues for a generous feminist attitude." Page went on to write two other books of poetry, Persuasion for a Mathematician and Watermarks, both with Pedlar Press. Watermarks was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award in 2009. Page was a contributor to many other poetry anthologies and publications such as Close To The Heart (English Garden Publishers 1996), At The Threshold (Beach Holme Press 1999), and The Summer Anthology (Banff Centre Press 1999).

In 2012, as tribute to her role within the writing community poet Phil Hall founded a named Lecture series at Queen’s University in Joanne’s name. The Page Lecture is an annual event in the English Department at Queen’s University.

Joanne married Stephen Page in 1969 and had two sons, Geoff and Ian. She passed away on February 20, 2015 after her second instance of cancer.