Editing Alistair MacLeod (section)

==Early life and education==
MacLeod's Scottish ancestors emigrated to [[Cumberland County, Nova Scotia]] from the Isle of [[Eigg]] in the 1790s. They settled at [[Cape d'Or]] on the [[Bay of Fundy]] where they appear to have leased farmland. In 1808, the parents with their seven daughters and two sons walked from Cape d'Or to [[Inverness County, Nova Scotia|Inverness County]], Cape Breton, a distance of 362 kilometres, after hearing they could farm their own land there. An account of the journey, written by MacLeod himself, says the family took their possessions with them, six cows and a horse. He adds there were few roads at the time, so his great-great-great-grandparents followed the shoreline.<ref>{{cite news |last1=MacLeod |first1=Alistair |title=My favourite place: Deep roots on Cape Breton |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2012/06/30/my_favourite_place_deep_roots_on_cape_breton.html |access-date=7 October 2018 |work=Toronto Star |date=30 June 2012}}</ref>

MacLeod was born in [[North Battleford]], [[Saskatchewan]]. His parents, whose first language was [[Canadian Gaelic]], had migrated to Saskatchewan from Cape Breton to [[homesteading|homestead]] during the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="Shelagh" /><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/homesteading/|title=Homesteading|author=Jane McCracken|encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|access-date=2014-04-28}}</ref> The family moved on to [[Edmonton]] when MacLeod was five and then to the town of [[Mercoal, Alberta]] where his father worked as a [[coal miner]].<ref name="Shelagh">{{cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/thenextchapter/episode/2013/10/07/shelaghs-extended-conversation-with-alistair-macleod/|title=Shelagh's extended conversation with Alistair MacLeod|author=Shelagh Rogers|publisher=[[CBC Radio]]|access-date=2014-04-28}}</ref> However, the MacLeods suffered from homesickness and when Alistair was 10, they returned to Cape Breton and the farmhouse in Dunvegan, [[Municipality of the County of Inverness|Inverness County]], that his great-grandfather had built in the 1860s.<ref name="Shulgan">Christopher Shulgan. "The Reluctant Scribe: Alistair MacLeod's first novel has been eagerly awaited since 1969 when he wrote a short story that had critics hailing him as Canada's greatest living writer. Thirty years later, No Great Mischief is finally in the bookstores. What took him so long?" ''The Ottawa Citizen'', November 7, 1999, p.C6.</ref><ref name="Scottish" />

MacLeod enjoyed attending school and apparently did well there.<ref name="Baer" /> He told a [[CBC Radio]] interviewer that as a student, he liked to read and write adding, "I was the kind of person who won the English prize in grade twelve."<ref name="Rogers">Shelagh Rogers. "An interview with Alistair MacLeod," in ''Alistair MacLeod Essays on His Works Irene Guilford ed. (2001) Toronto: Guernica Editions Inc.</ref> After graduating from high school in 1954, MacLeod moved to Edmonton where he delivered milk for a year from a horse-drawn wagon.<ref name="Shelagh" />

In 1956, MacLeod furthered his education by attending the [[Nova Scotia Teachers College]] in [[Truro, Nova Scotia|Truro]] and then taught school for a year on [[Port Hood Island, Nova Scotia|Port Hood Island]] off Cape Breton's west coast.<ref name="Scottish">{{cite web|url=http://www.windsorscottish.com/pl-lp-amacleod.php|title=People: Scots of Windsor Today|publisher=Windsor Community Website|access-date=2014-04-27|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140703213803/http://www.windsorscottish.com/pl-lp-amacleod.php|archive-date=2014-07-03}}</ref><ref name="Evain">Christine Evain. (2010) ''Conversations with Alistair MacLeod''. Paris: Éditions Publibook, p.17.</ref>  To finance his university education, he worked summers drilling and blasting in mines in [[British Columbia]], the [[Northwest Territories]] and, in the [[uranium]] mines of northern [[Ontario]].<ref name="Baer">{{Cite journal| url = http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0044.217 | volume = 44| issue = 2| pages = 334–352| last = Baer| first = William| title = A lesson in the art of storytelling: An interview with Alistair MacLeod| journal = Michigan Quarterly Review| date = 2005| hdl = 2027/spo.act2080.0044.217}}</ref> At some point, he also worked at a logging camp on [[Vancouver Island]] rising rapidly through the ranks because he was physically able to climb the tallest trees and rig cables to their tops.<ref name="Rogers" />

Between 1957 and 1960, MacLeod studied at [[St. Francis Xavier University]] earning a [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] and [[Bachelor of Education|B.Ed]].<ref name="Evain" /> He then went on to receive his [[Master of Arts|MA]] in 1961 from the [[University of New Brunswick]].<ref name="Windsor" /> He decided to study for a [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] at the [[University of Notre Dame]] in [[Indiana]] because [[Frank O'Malley]] taught creative writing there.<ref name="Baer" /> MacLeod said he was used to analyzing the work of other authors, but wanted to start writing himself. That wouldn't have happened, he added, if he had not attended such a "creative, imaginative university."<ref name="Rogers" />

He wrote his doctoral [[dissertation]] on the English novelist [[Thomas Hardy]] whom he admired. "I especially liked the idea," he told an interviewer years later, "that his novels were usually about people who lived outdoors and were greatly affected by the forces of nature."<ref name="Baer" /> MacLeod was awarded his PhD in 1968, the same year he published ''The Boat'' in ''The Massachusetts Review''.<ref name="Evain" /> The story appeared in the 1969 edition of ''The Best American Short Stories'' along with ones by [[Andre Dubus]], [[Bernard Malamud]], [[Joyce Carol Oates]] and [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]].<ref name="NYT">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/books/alistair-macleod-author-of-no-great-mischief-dies-at-77.html?_r=0|title=Alistair MacLeod, a Novelist in No Hurry, Dies at 77|author=Margalit Fox|newspaper=The New York Times|date=24 April 2014 |access-date=2014-04-28}}</ref>