Celebrate Writing

The late Ellen Seligman was widely recognized as Canada’s best literary editor, working with authors such as Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Elizabeth Hay, Anne Michaels, Rohinton Mistry and Michael Ondaatje. A fierce defender of literature and those who write it, Seligman led PEN Canada as president from 2009 to 2011. Fellow past presidents, Charlie Foran, Katherine Govier, Nino Ricci and Philip Slayton, reflect on the life, work, and advocacy of their friend, editor and colleague.

At the request of Ellen’s family, PEN Canada is accepting donations in her memory.

Charlie Foran
President, 2011-2013

No surprise, Ellen was among the most meticulous of PEN Canada presidents. When she called in 2009 to ask me to serve as her VP, my initial worry wasn’t the organization’s dire financial straits. It was my grammar. My grammar, and word choice, and how I strung phrases together. I knew I’d be expected to produce PEN documents, and that she would be editing my work. Ellen Seligman, editing my prose? I was rattled.

From 2009-2011, PEN Canada produced press releases and website materials worthy of the spring and fall lists at McClelland & Stewart. Ellen wrote many, and asked for my editing suggestions. (None.) I wrote several and ran them by her for touch ups. (Many.) Under her direction, PEN material was uniformly crisp and concise, every word a mot juste.

Mid-way through her tenure we decided we needed an orientation manual for board members.   Though we found some funds to help with the writing, the editing of nearly 100 pages of sensible, smart advice for new PEN directors fell to the executive – i.e. Ellen and myself, page by page, paragraph by paragraph. All at once I was worried for the next several months of my life. I called her, pleaded extreme busyness, and freely admitted that the loss – of my further improvement as a writer, of epic phone conversations devoted to making a single sentence about attendance at AGMs sing like poetry – was all mine. She accepted my withdrawal from the project with equanimity, but I sensed her disappointment. Or was I sensing disappointment in myself for not being up for more bracing, brilliant Ellen edits?

And I can boast this now: the PEN Canada board manual, circa 2011, is the best edited manual of its kind. Anywhere. For all time.

Ellen was just like that. Such an original. Such a lovely human being.

Katherine Govier
President, 1997-1998

Ellen was not my editor. She was my friend. Maybe the first enabled the second. Though I had met her at industry parties, our friendship began because her partner Jim and I go to dance class together.

Nick, Jim, Ellen and I dined at restaurants Ellen had scrutinized for ambience, temperature, behavior of waiters and menu, and at our house. I can see her coming in the door and beginning to untangle the coils of shawls, scarves and jackets she wore. I’d offer to take one or two, but most she would keep; she was always cold. She brought her Obus Form seat back, exquisite cheese, her favourite wine, Sancerre, judicious commentary on all matters literary, and many questions about window blinds, sofas and door hardware.

Ellen was restoring a large house on Delaware Avenue. The progress was slow because she was so exacting. The plasterer, the air conditioning guys, and the landscapers all had to be recalled, their work raised to her perfectionist standards. This meant that for four years Ellen and Jim lived in furnished apartments around the city, addresses I would drop Jim off at after dance class.

Ellen hated to fly, and so, in a retirement that was talked about but never came, they were upsizing to a beautiful home and garden where they would relax and entertain. The new dining room was the nerve centre and they did hold dinner parties there, first with packing boxes for coffee tables, and bare walls. Ellen was radiant in the space she created. But alas time overtook her and she is gone before the pictures were hung. It was so unfair and so hard to believe. I was with her in denial all the way.

Despite eight months of terror and pain she always asked for details about my difficulties. When we last had tea she said that despite all, she was editing, “because that is who I am.” But there was a quizzical look in her eye. She knew it wasn’t all she was, and so did I. She was a wondrous editor, but she was also a great friend, consummately brave, considerate and generous, and dedicated to the causes of writers and writing.

Nino Ricci
President, 1995-1996

I had the privilege to work with Ellen Seligman on two of my novels, and the experience marked me. It is surely true that as a writer your greatest enemy is always yourself, in the tendency to be too hard on your own work or too easy, or, worst of all, to give in to the despair that no one else will much care in the end whether you write at all. Ellen was someone who cared, deeply. She cared about the written word and everything it stood for, the act of imagination and of hope it represented, its attempt to give voice to what it is to be human and to break down the borders and misperceptions that keep us from understanding one another or ourselves. As a writer you could hope for no better ally than Ellen, and no better defense against your own worst tendencies. When you were ready to compromise and choose the easy solution, Ellen was there to show you that you were capable of better; when you were ready to throw in the towel she was there to remind you that she had your back.

Ellen’s work at PEN, far from being a mere adjunct to her work as an editor and publisher, spoke to the very essence, I think, of the great humanizing project she saw literature as. Once again, she was her writers’ best ally, unswerving in her commitment to the thousands of writers around the world suffering persecutions on account of their work and unstinting in her defense of their right to express themselves. And once again she was there to show us, when we shirked, that we could do better, and to remind us, when we despaired, that she had our back.

Literature has lost one of its most passionate guardians, and writers one of their staunchest friends.

Haroon Siddiqui
President, 2003-2005

Ellen handled the crises at PEN Canada with the tranquility of an experienced editor, used to ignoring the temper tantrums of prima donnas and soothing the insecurities of pedestrian toilers.

She had been handed an organization in deep trouble, riven by petty internal conflicts and a near-empty treasury. She graciously accepted the challenge and proceeded to fix the mess. She did so methodically and by working virtually around the clock.

Typically, she remained modest about the miracle she had wrought by the end of her term. There was no crowing, no overt or sly solicitation of praise. That was Ellen.

Unlike many writers and other creative people, she had understood the need for organizations like ours to do the prose of good governance in order to do the poetry of our mission.

We never thanked her enough.

It’s also useful to remember in this age of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, that she, a native New Yorker, was America’s gift to Canada.

Philip Slayton
President, 2013-2015

Some are respected; some are loved; few are respected and loved by all who know them. Ellen was one of those. She was respected for her fierce intelligence, indefatigable commitment to important work, wide-ranging interests, professional skill, uncompromising standards. She was loved for her sense of humour, her eccentricity and whimsy, wit and charm, her generosity and hospitality, her smile, her beauty. She was the best of company. You loved to be with her.

Many have spoken or written about Ellen’s central role in modern Canadian literature. In that world, it seemed for decades that all roads led to Ellen. As president of PEN Canada from 2009 to 2011, with her characteristic combination of grace and toughness, she saved us from extinction at a parlous point in our history; those of us committed to PEN, and those who benefit from its work, are completely in her debt. But it is unnecessary to rehearse in detail her many achievements. They are now the stuff of history.

Yes, she was quite something, that Ellen Seligman. Her early death is a cosmic blunder that should be undone as quickly as possible. Along with many, many others, I will miss her terribly. As I say, she was the best of company.