Alma Lee, a "passionate reader and champion of Canadian literature" who founded the Vancouver Writers Fest, died March 28, Quill & Quire reported. She was 84. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Lee immigrated to Canada in 1967 and launched her career in the book world in 1971 at House of Anansi Press, where she became general manager.
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Lee went on to build literary organizations in Canada. She was the first executive director of the Writers' Union of Canada, which she helped found in 1973, and was founding executive director of the Writers' Trust of Canada, Q&Q noted. She moved to British Columbia in 1984, where she launched the Vancouver Writers Fest four years later with the help of literary friends and colleagues.
Lee ran the festival for 17 years, retiring in 2005, though she remained an ambassador for the festival and provided "guidance and insight," the organization posted on social media, adding: "A lifelong advocate for arts and culture who founded multiple pillars of Canada's literary community, Alma was an esteemed leader and friend, whose vision and dedication put Vancouver on the literary map.... There are few people who have made as great an impact on the Canadian literary world as Alma Lee. Her legacy lives on in the form of enduring funding, support, and stages for countless writers from coast to coast.... Alma will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered by her family, friends, peers, mentees, and the literary community at large. She has touched the lives of tens of thousands of readers and writers, and her impact will continue to shape many future generations."
Author Margaret Atwood, who worked with Lee in the 1970s to help form the Writers' Union of Canada, told CBC News: "She was absolutely essential to the writers' union and she founded the Readers and Writers Festival in Vancouver. These things all take a lot of work and a lot of networking, and she was very good at that.... Nobody knew anything about contracts at that time. We didn't know what was supposed to be in them. There weren't any agents.... Those were some of our problems, and that's why we formed the union and Alma was the person who organized it all and kept everything going."
Lee was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2004 for her work as "a passionate and effective champion of Canadian authors."