The book contains short stories and poems from countless Canadian women, grouped under ten thematic headings from Growing Up Female to Power and Transcendence. Our most famous-- Atwood, Laurence, Munro-are represented as are other well known writers such as Dorothy Livesay, Audrey Thomas, Leona Com, Aritha Van Herk, Ann Cameron, and Sandra Birdsell. But one of book's strengths is its inclusion of the work of many relatively unknown writers such as Lori Weber, Sandra Hartline, Sharon Carlson, Susan Glickman and Frances Davis. Sadly, several notables are missing-Carol Shields, Jane Rule, Mavis Gallant-but perhaps Nemiroff did not receive submissions from them. Some of the entries are of questionable merit but the strengths of the rest overshadow the deficiencies of weaker ones. The final section, Biographical Notes on the Contributors, is helpful and enlightening, although a few of the writers are, unfortunately, omitted.

Similar anthologies of this kind, of which there are few, include Rosemary Sullivan's Stories by Canadian Women and More Stories by Canadian Women. But these two collections differ in purpose and kind. Both, most obviously, are anthologies of just short stories. The first volume takes a historical approach, starting with Isabella Valancy Crawford and ending with Aritha Van Herk. The second volume includes "new writers," those who have risen to prominence in the last two decades, such as Janice Kulyk Keefer and Bharati Mukherjee. Neither volume uses the thematic linking of Celebrating Canadian Women. Nemiroff also intended that her anthology serve as a complement to Women & Men: Interdisciplinary Reading on Gender (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1987) although as she points out: "the focus in Women and Men is on describing, explaining and remediating the issues under discussion. The works in Celebrating Canadian Women illuminate how women perceive and define these experiences."

This anthology should be widely used in college and university courses, whether in English or Women's Studies. Lately, the white, male dominated "canon" of literature in English courses has been challenged by those who realize that a much wider diversity of human experience needs to be expressed and recognized; this anthology would provide a suitable alternative. And although the state of Women's Studies courses in Canada is deplorable, as Nemiroff outlined in the spring 1989 issue of Women's Education des femmes, this collection would provide an impetus for developing new ones.

Celebrating Canadian Women in its diversity and range provides a wealth of reading for those who want to hear from Canadian women. They have had a difficult time being heard.

Maureen Shaw is an English instructor at Kwantlen College in Surrey, B.C., teaching Canadian literature and writing, and trying hard to improve the status of women students and faculty.