By Jeffrey Carter,

A list of most influential women in the world of English literature in Canada would not be complete without the names of Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood.
Manitoba-born Laurence is best known for her 1964 novel, The Stone Angel and The Diviners which was published a decade later and recognized with a Governor General’s Award for fiction. Having read these some decades ago – both remain in our collection – I can only imagine they served as an inspiration for the other two authors.
Celebrated to an even greater extent has been Atwood who has reached the pinnacle of international fame. It has taken time for me to build an appreciation for her work. I thoroughly enjoyed The Blind Assassin (2000) which received the coveted Booker Prize and now I follow her vision of a dystopian future which begins with Oryx and Crake (2003).
Atwood captures, like Munro, the essence of rural Ontario though perhaps from a somewhat more privileged perch. Add to that the fact that Atwood is recommended by Salman Rushdie who currently is my favourite of all living writers. He mentions her name at least twice in his 2012 autobiography, Joseph Anton: A Memoir, a most honest work which demonstrates that one may be at the same time a most brilliant writer and not a particularly nice person.
It was only this summer, as the controversy around her legacy erupted, that I became familiar with Munro, having picked up a used copy of her 2006 collection of short stories, The View from Castle Rock. Undeterred, I finished reading the work and a few weeks later selected additional titles.
I also took the time to peruse the Toronto Star article that led to the furor and thought, who are we to judge? Skeletons lie closeted within the lives of all families. My family has many. Which particular door would you like to open?
When I read Munro, I am reminded of the matriarchs of my own family, women whose strength lay perseverance, able to emerge stronger from the tribulations thrust upon them; women determined to gather influence and agency about themselves when the opportunity arose.
My mother, a contemporary of all three authors, had many words of advice for her children. Among the most oft-repeated phrase was this: “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.”
There may be a bit of “I told you so” tied to those words but at their core, I think, was an important message linked to responsibility. In life, mistakes are made. Walking away is the easy thing to do. Remaining committed is the more difficult path, the uncomfortable choice. 
Munro is a winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, awarded in 2013, and is known primarily for her short stories which tend to be intergenerational in scope and emotionally charged. Few if any words are wasted. She captures the essence of rural Southern Ontario, scenes often bathed with a kind, warming light though with illumination of any kind, shadows also lie.
Alice Ann Munro was born in Wingham in Huron County in 1931 and is of Irish-Scottish descent but views herself as a North American. Her mother was a school teacher and her father a farmer who raised fox and mink during the fur industry’s heyday. It is in Huron County and other parts of Southwestern Ontario that many of her short stories are set. She passed away in May this year.