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Rogers, Linda
Linda Jane Rogers, née Hall, poet, novelist, editor (b at Port Alice, BC 10 Oct 1944). Born to a privileged family, Linda Rogers studied English literature (BA 1966) and Canadian Literature (MA 1970) at the University of British Columbia.
Rogers's earliest titles were chapbooks, many issued as part of Fiddlehead Poetry Books in the 1970s. Queens of the Next Hot Star (1981), considered her first full-length work, is a collection of poetry inspired by her friendship with a First Nations woman. The title marked a notable debut and was nominated for the Pat LOWTHER Memorial Award. Other major collections include Witness (1983), Singing Rib (1988), Woman at Mile Zero (1990), and Letters from the Doll Hospital (1992). Hard Candy (1994) won the Dorothy LIVESAY Poetry Prize and was followed by Love in the Rainforest (1996), Heaven Cake (1997), The Saning (1999) and The Bursting Test (2002).
Children hold a place of importance in Rogers's work. Her finest book, Say My Name (2000), a young adult novel, is a fictional memoir of a Cowichan youth who had once been part of the author's extended family. Rogers has written two collections of poetry for children, Worm Sandwich (1988) and Brown Bag Blues (1991). The latter was published by Studio 123, a short-lived press she co-founded with her husband Rick van Krugel. Her other works for children include Frankie Zapper and the Disappearing Teacher (1993), Molly Brown is Not a Clown (1996), and The Magic Flute (1991), a retelling of the Mozart opera.
Rogers's adult novels are The Half Life of Radium (1994) and Friday Water (2003).
A past president of both the Federation of BC Writers (1990) and the League of Canadian Poets (1997), Rogers' interest in the advancement of Canadian letters is reflected in her editorship of P.K. Page: Essays on Her Work (2001), George Fetherling and His Work (2005), and several other studies devoted to the writings of individual writers.
