David Creelman

Dr. David Creelman is a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Languages at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John and is currently the Chair of the Department of Humanities and Languages.

Having received his BA from Acadia University, his BEd and MA from the University of New Brunswick, and his PhD from York University, David Creelman started teaching in the Faculty of Arts at UNB Saint John in 1991.

He teaches in the fields of Canadian Literature and Modern British Literature, and is also interested in literary theory and children's literature. In the fall of 2005, he was a guest researcher at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

He has also been long interested in the development of teaching in the university environment, is involved with the Vice-President's Excellence in Teaching Committee, and was named a 3M National Teaching Fellow in 2015.

David Creelman specializes in Maritime literature and has published extensively on Maritime fiction in the twentieth century. His initial interest was realist literature, and he is currently working on a SSHRC Insight Grant supported project focussing on Maritime texts which have been written by or about racialized communities that have been marginalized from the mainstream regional culture.

Books

Setting in the East: Maritime Realist Fiction. Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003.

Weathers: Poems New and Selected by Douglas Lochhead. Edited and Introduced by David Creelman. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2002.

Teaching to Engage and Retain. Co-editors: Sandra Bell, Lisa Best, David Creelman, Ken Craft, Dale Roach, David Ross. Proceedings of Association of Atlantic Universities'. 12th Teaching Showcase, October 2008, University of New Brunswick Saint John. Saint John, 2009.

Articles and book chapters

“Struggling Toward Identity George Elliott Clarke’s The Motorcyclist.” Studies in Canadian Literature. 47, 2 (2023): 114-30.

“Anne Minerva Henderson’s Citadel and Gloria Wesley’s To My Someday Child: A Close Reading of Two Maritime Voices.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 47, 1 (2022): 193-216.

Veselin Jungic, David Creelman, Bigelow, Ann. Etienne Côté, Sara Harris, Steve Joordens, Peter Ostafichuk, Jessica Riddell, Pamela Toulouse and Jin-Sun Yoon. “Experiencing Failure in the Classroom and Across the University.” International Journal of Academic Development: 2020: 1-12.

“Representing the Environment in Victorian, Modern, and Postcolonial Fictions: Three Maritime Canadian Novels.” Green Matters: Ecoculural Functions of Literature, eds. Maria Löschnigg and Melanie Braunecker. Leiden and Boston: Brill 2020. 77-89.

“Protest, Tragedy, and the Triumph of Language: George Elliott Clarke’s George & Rue.” The Anglo-Canadian Novel in the Twenty-First Century Canadian. Ed. Maria Loschnigg and Martin Loschnigg. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2019: 75-84.

“Afterword: Congruence and Recurrence in the Literatures of New Brunswick.” Literary Ferments. Ed Tony Tremblay. Wilfred University Press. 2017.

“Refashioning Mi’kmaw Narratives into Maritime Fictions: Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Frank Parker Day, and Alden Nowlan.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes. 49, 2 (Spring 2015): 150-170.

“Assessing Actions and Rewarding Behaviour: An Innovative First-Year Course to Help Students Succeed at University.” Co-authored with Lisa Best, Ken Craft, Greg Fleet, Book Kek, Beth Keyes, David Ross and Sandy Wilson. 2013 Teaching Showcase: Proceedings. Ed Shelly Colette, Eileen Herteis, and Toni Roberts. Mount Allison University, Sackville 17 (July 2014): 42-54.

“Ernest Buckler’s Past and Present Landscapes.” Literary Atlas of Atlantic Canada. Ed Andrew Wainwright. 3-24: 2014. 

“Revising/Responding: Writing in the First Year.” Co-authored with Sandra Bell. Proc. Atlantic Universities’ Teaching Showcase 2009, Vol. 13. Ed. Sonya Major and Norman Scrimger. Acadia University, Wolfville, 2010: 58-68.

"MacLeod." The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century World Fiction. Ed. John Ball. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2009.

"Swept Under: Reading the Story of Two Undervalued Maritime Writers." Studies in Canadian Literature. 33, 2 (2009). pp. 60 - 79.

"Multiple Identities: A Greimasian exploration of National/Regional Identities." Anglistick: International Journal of English Studies. 18, 1 (March, 2007): pp. 77 - 95.

"Saying What You Mean: Form and Rhetoric in Ian McKay's The Quest of the Folk." Acadiensis 35, 1 (Autumn, 2005): pp. 132 - 138.

"Undermining Comedy: The Shadow of Determinism in the Salterton Novels." Robertson Davies: A Mingling of Contrarieties. Ed. Camille R. La Bossiere and Linda Morra. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2001: pp. 45 - 47.

""Hoping to strike some sort of solidity:" The Shifting Fictions of Alistair MacLeod." Studies in Canadian Literature. 24, 2 (1999): pp. 79 - 99.

""In Momentary Triumph": The Novels of Nancy Bauer." Atlantis. 20, 1 (Fall, 1995): pp. 183 - 193.

"Small Bodies: Death and the Child in Maritime Fiction." Children's Voices in Atlantic Literature and Culture, ed. Hilary Thompson. Guelph: Canadian Children's Press, 1995: pp. 68 - 78.

"Conservative Solutions: The Early Historical Fiction of Thomas Raddall." Studies in Canadian Literature. 20, 1 (1995): pp. 127 - 149.

"Robert Kroetsch: Criticism in the Middle Ground." Studies in Canadian Literature. 16, 1 (1991): pp. 63 - 81.

"Charles Bruce: The Channel Shore between Realism and Nostalgia." Dalhousie Review. 71, 4 (Winter, 1991): pp. 460 - 479.

Selected conferences

Creelman, David. “Telling Similar Tales: Novels about the First World War by Charles Yale Harrison and Gloria Ann Wesley.” Invited to ACCUTE Session at SSHRC Congress, George Brown College (GBC), Toronto, ON. May 30 - June 2, 2025.

“Recreating the Self in Context: The Tensions within George Elliott Clarke’s Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir.” “The New Acadiensis School.” University of Orono, Ornono ME, May 9 - 11, 2024

Creelman, David and Sandra Bell. “From Capstone to Stepping-Stone: talking employment in the Arts.” Invited to STLHE Annual Conference 2023. UPEI, Charlottetown, PEI. June 14 - 16, 2023.

“Maritime Neo-Slave Narratives: The Shifting Fictions of Kositsky, Wesley, and Robart-Johnson.” Invited to ACCUTE Session at SSHRC Congress, York University, Toronto, ON. May 27 - June 2, 2023.

“Living and Writing as African Nova Scotians: The Literary Works of David Woods and Charles R Saunders.” Invited to Atlantic Canada Studies Conference. “Histories from the Margins: Innovation and Adaptation in Atlantic Canada.” UNB, Fredericton, NB. May 25 - 28, 2022.

“Moving from Silence to Sound: The Representation and Articulation of Africadian Culture in the Maritime Region in the Last Century.” Invited to the British Association of Canadian Studies 44th Annual Conference: The State and Canada. University of London. London, UK. May 11 - 13, 2019.

“Breaking Chains and Restoring Links: The First Books of Lorne Simon and Shalan Joudry.” Invited to the 2018: Atlantic Canada Studies Conference. Acadia University, Wolfville, N.S. May 4 - 5. 2018.

Creelman, David and Ann Bigelow, Etienne Cote, Veselin Jungic, Jessica Riddell, Jin-Sun Yoon “Risk and Failure: Resilience and Teaching.” Invited to STLHE Annual Conference 2017: Cultures, Transitions, and Transformations. Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., June 20 - 23, 2017.

Creelman, David. “Representing the Environment in Victorian, Modern, and Post-Colonial Fictions: Three Maritime Canadian Novels.” Invited to Literature and the Environment. University of Gratz, Austria. June 8 - 10, 2017.

Creelman, David. “At the level of the sentence:" Five Six Persuasive Critical Statements in Atlantic Canadian Literary Studies” Plenary Address. 10th Thomas Raddall Symposium Thoughts from the Eastern Edge In Celebration of Dr. Herb Wyile. Acadia University. June 6-8, 2017.

Creelman, David, Melissa Kolody, Arfan Hajizadeh, “We’re In It Together: Learning Communities at UNB Saint John.” Invited to AAU Showcase 2016. University of New Brunswick, Saint John, N.B. Oct. 15, 2016. 

Creelman, David and Ann Bigelow, Etienne Cote, Veselin Jungic, Jessica Riddell, Jin-Sun Yoon “Student Centered Teaching: When the Students become the Teachers.” Invited to STLHE Annual Conference 2016: Empowering Learners, Effecting Change. Western University, London, Ont., June 21 - 24, 2016.

“Something that comes very near to the heart:” Selecting, Retelling, and Reshaping Mi’kmaw Tales as Children’s Literature.” Invited to “Child, Yourh, and Place in Atlantic Canadian Literature. 9th Thomas Raddall Symposium.” Acadia University. Wolfville, July 9 - 11, 2015. 

“The Connection is There: Defining Aesthetic Patterns in Mi’kmaq Poetry.” 20th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and Saint Thomas University, Fredericton, May 2 - 5, 2014.

Creelman, David, Lisa Best, Ken Craft, Greg Fleet, David Ross. “Assessing Actions: Learning By Doing.” Assessment: Teaching, Learning, Quality. AAU Showcase, Mount Allison University, Sackville, N.B., Oct. 26, 2013.

“Speaking for the Others: Refashioning First Nations Stories as Literary Narratives in the Texts of Roberts, Day, and Nowlan.” Invited to “Meeting Places/Lieux de rencontre: An International Canadian Studies Conference,” Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, and Mount Allison University, Sackville, Sept. 18 - 22, 2013.

“Most decidedly here:” The Importance and Absence of Place in the Aesthetics and Poetry of Anne Compton and Bob Moore.” Invited to “Atlantic-Canada in a Shifting World.” Acadia University. Wolfville, July 5 - 7, 2013.

“Teaching First Year Students with an Eye on Persistence.” AAU Showcase, Saint Thomas University, Fredericton, Oct. 13, 2012.

“Douglas Lochhead as Regional Modernist Poet” 19th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference, University of New Brunswick in Saint John, Saint John. May 3 - 6, 2012.

Creelman, David and Sandra Bell. ““So Happy Together:” Team Teaching Undergraduates.” AAU Showcase, Mount Saint Vincent University, Oct. 29, 2011.

Creelman, David, Paul Bowlby, Ted Christou, and Ryan Hamilton. “Faculty Voices Panel Discussion: Advice for New Faculty.” Career Corner. Panel Series organized by CETL for Congress 2011, Fredericton, June 2, 2011.

“Prose Fiction in The Fiddlehead.” Invited to ACCUTE Session at SSHRC Congress 2011, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. May 29 - 31, 2011.

“Necessary Regionalism: Regionalism as Discourse and the Fiction of Frank Parker Day and George Elliott Clarke.” Invited to ACCUTE Session at SSHRC Congress 2010, Concordia University, Montreal. May 28 - 31, 2010.

Creelman, David and Sandra Bell. “Revising/Responding: Writing in the First Year” AAU Showcase, Acadia University, Oct. 25, 2009.

“Stopping Short: Hayden White Does Not Go Far Enough.” Invited to take part in a round table discussion entitled “Unpacking Atlantic Canada Studies with Hayden White and Postmodernism,” at the “The 18th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference,” University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI, Halifax, NS, April 30 - May 3, 2009.

Creelman David and Reid Parker. “Ornis” and “Chronicles of Random:” The Writings of John Tilley” ,Invited to “The 18th Atlantic Canada Studies Conference,” University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI, April 30 - May 3, 2009.