CMU Faculty

Sue Sorensen

Professor of English

Born in Saskatchewan, Sue Sorensen was educated at the University of Regina and the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral dissertation was on British novelist A.S. Byatt. She is the author of The Collar: Reading Christian Ministry in Fiction, Television, and Film (2014) and the editor of West of Eden: Essays on Canadian Prairie Literature (2008). In addition, she has written essays on authors such as Henry James, Ian McEwan, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Winnipeg rocker John K. Samson. Her interests extend from 19th- and 20th-century British literature—her core area of specialization—to detective fiction and film adaptations of literature. She has taught at CMU since 2005. In 2021 she took on the leadership of the university's academic publishing concern, CMU Press.

She is also a poet and novelist; her first novel, A Large Harmonium, was published in 2011. It won Best First Book at the Manitoba Book Awards in 2012 and was a contender for Winnipeg Public Library's On the Same Page program. Her first book of poetry, Acutely Life, was released in 2024.

For some recent writing, check out Sue's pieces at The Puritan and The League of Canadian Poets.

Sue has two sons and is a member of Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. Much of Sue's academic writing can be found at academia.edu. Her personal website is suesorensen.net.

How To Read a Cleric
Click to view Sue's contribution to The Church Times , based on research for The Collar. 
- published January 16, 2015

Areas of Teaching

19th and 20th Century British Literature; Detective Fiction; Canadian Literature; Visual Art, Film, Music, Religion and their Relation to Literature

Education

PhD, University of British Columbia, 1999; MA, University of British Columbia, 1993; BA (Hons), University of Regina, 1985

Work in Detail

Teaching

• Nineteenth-Century Novel
• The Novel Since 1900
• Canadian Literature
• Literary Non-Fiction (short form)
• Literary Memoir (book-length)
• Major Authors: Charles Dickens
• Literary Genres: Twentieth-Century Drama
• Special Topics in English: The Detective in Fiction and Film
• Advanced Topics in English: Impossible Books                                          
• Children's Literature

Research

BOOK

The Collar: Reading Christian Ministry in Fiction, Television, and Film. Cascade, 2014.

EDITED BOOK

West of Eden: Essays on Canadian Prairie Literature. CMU Press, 2008.

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

"From a Mere Glance: Purposeful Reticence in Victorian Gospel Illustration and the Saint John's Bible." The Saint John's Bible and its Tradition: Illuminating Beauty in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Jack Baker, Jeffrey Bilbro, and Daniel Train. Wipf and Stock, 2018. 90-103.

"Locked Room Mysteries from The Book of Daniel to Laurie R. King." Christianity and the Detective Story: Essays. Ed. Anya Morlan and Walter Raubicheck. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. 47-57.

"John K. Samson, Poet Laureate of Winnipeg Rock." States of the Art: Considering Poetry Today. Ed. Klaus Martens. Königshausen & Neumann, 2010. 123-134.

"A Visual Approach to The Turn of the Screw."  Approaches to Teaching Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller. Ed. Kimberly C. Reed and Peter G. Beidler. Modern Language Association, 2005. 195-201.

JOURNAL ARTICLES (PEER-REVIEWED)

" 'He Thinks He's Failed': Representations of Christian Clergy in English Canadian Fiction." Studies in Religion / Sciences religieuses 43.4 (2014): 553-74.

"Battle or Gratitude? Attitudes Conveyed to Children by Pokémon, Bakugan, and Magic Tree House Books." Peace Research 41.2 (2009): 5-29.

"Ian McEwan's Saturday: The Pre/Post-Modern Novel." Academic Exchange Quarterly 12.1 (Spring 2008): 51-55.

"Rocker Auteurs: David Byrne and Neil Young as Film Directors." Studies in Popular Culture 30.1 (Fall 2007): 105-123.

"Don't Hanker to Be No Prophet: Guy Vanderhaeghe and the Bible." Canadian Literature 191 (Winter 2006): 32-46.

 "Something of the Eternal: A. S. Byatt and Vincent Van Gogh." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 37.1 (March 2004): 63-81.

Performance

POETRY

Acutely Life. Poems. Winnipeg: At Bay Press, 2024. 

FICTION

A Large Harmonium. Novel. Regina: Coteau Books, 2011.

• Winner: Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Author. 24th Annual Manitoba Book Awards, April 2012.
• Finalist: Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. 24th Annual Manitoba Book Awards, April 2012.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCE

"The Mary Cycle." Poems performed at Love Songs for Mary. Commissioned for Renaissance Voices. Conducted by Janet Brenneman. Young United Church, Winnipeg. 9 & 10 December, 2016.

POETRY

"Blue: Three Sonnets to Mary." Exile: The Literary Quarterly 42.2 [2019]: 67-68.

• Best poem in Exile: The Literary Quarterly's Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Competition, 2017.

"Difficult women." CV2 41.1 (Summer 2018): 45.

"Which part didn't you like," "You kept your name, I kept my name."  The New Quarterly 147 (Summer 2018):87-88.

"Latent" and "Folding Yourself into the Car You Drive." Grain 43.4 (Summer 2016): 54-55.

"Arrange the tigers," "Burn," "The poem," "Not much said lately about Mick Jagger." Prairie Fire 36.1 (Spring 2015): 110-114.

"Freud and Jung in America, 1909: Coney Island." Desperately Seeking Susans. Ed. Sarah yi-Mei Tsang. Oolichan Books, 2012.

 "On the Road to Golders Green." Prairie Fire 33.2 (Summer 2012).  

• Honourable Mention: Prairie Fire 2011 Poetry Competition.

"Treading Water." Room 34.1 (Fall 2010): 86.

 "Vox" and "[a three-sided square]." CV2 32.3 (Winter 2010): 64-65.

"Eaton's Building" and "Boy." Prairie Fire 30.1 (Spring 2009): 77-79.

Community

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES AND SERVICE

• Director, CMU Press, Canadian Mennonite University, 2021-
• Board of Directors, Prairie Fire magazine, 2015-2020.
• "Biblical Themes in Contemporary Literature." and "Ministry:  Coming Soon to a Screen Near You." Portable CMU Presentations to various Winnipeg churches.
• Member, Organizing Committee, Symposium on Manitoba Writing, May 2012
• Chair, Faculty Research Committee, CMU, 2012-2015, 2018-2022
• Director, School of Writing at CMU, 2006-2011

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