CWF Profile
News Release: Ottawa, 20 October 2011, The Canadian Writers' Foundation (CWF) marks its 80th anniversary »
Founded in 1931, the Canadian Writers’ Foundation is a registered charity
with only
one aim—to help Canada’s writers when they fall on hard times.
It’s not a job that anyone
wants to think about, and it’s not very glamorous, but Pierre Berton—who
served on the
Foundation’s board for more than thirty years—considered it “essential
to the literary well-being
of Canada.”
Many Canadian writers die poor. Canada cannot afford to abandon any writer who gives to our cultural heritage a gift that will last forever. E.J. Pratt, Alfred Desrochers, Milton Acorn, Roger Brien, Dorothy Livesay, Norman Levine, Mollie Gillen—these are only a few of the distinguished men and women who have been forced to turn to the Foundation for help. Why? Because literary and artistic success don’t necessarily lead to economic success. Fame, unfortunately, doesn’t pay bills. And although many government programs help writers during their working lives, none offer them aid when they no longer can…because they’re too old or too sick, or have been struck down by accident. Here’s where the Foundation steps in. And its modest grants are often all that separate humiliation from dignity, misery from decency.
Spread out across the country, the Foundation’s directors are
all volunteers, and
many are writers themselves. But to carry on their work, they need your help,
and the help of
everyone who truly loves Canadian literature. If you would like to make a donation—or
know
of a Canadian writer who might need the Foundation—please contact us.
