Rachel Wyatt was a longtime member of The Writers' Union of Canada. This remembrance of Rachel is attributed to and first published by ABCBookWorld. A longer version with Rachel's CV can be found on their website.
Born in Bradford Yorks, England, on October 14, 1929, Rachel Wyatt (Order of Canada - CM) was educated in Yorkshire and immigrated to Canada with her husband and children in 1957. Originally a radio dramatist, she published stories in numerous magazines while developing an earlier style that was once described by James Polk as a "British comedy-of-manners in the vein of Evelyn Waugh or Nancy Mitford, but the merriment is tempered by the melancholy of the characters, often expatriates who seem dislocated, lost in the surreal cityscapes of North America." In addition to her own stageplays at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Wyatt adapted a version of Adele Wiseman's novel Crackpot for Theatre Calgary. As of 1986 she became closely associated with the Banff Centre for the Arts, first as an instructor and then as its director of writing programs, until she moved to Victoria in September of 1993. Throughout her work, a keen sense of irony prevails, mixed with compassion and humour. One of her stories opens, “When Harold Fryer went to church that Sunday, he had to begin by reminding God of his existence.” Her novel, Letters to Omar (Coteau, 2011) is about three interfering women “with time on their hands” who tackle a charitable cause, and realize that fixing the universe is no easy task. Rachel Wyatt is a Member of The Order of Canada (2002) and received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 2003.
When the wife of an architect for a hugely unpopular real estate development disappears from a small town in Rachel Wyatt's mystery novel, Suspicion (Coteau 2012), there is no shortage of suspects for murder. Her younger sister led the protests against the housing scheme and her father isn't keen to search for her. An anonymous chat room regular pseudonym-ed as “Marguerite” seems to know more than anyone. If Agatha Christie was around today with an Apple computer, she might have invented Marguerite instead of Miss Marple.
A woman holding a sign that asks “Are you content to be nothing?” is our guide as we make our way through Street Symphony (Coteau, 2015), Rachel Wyatt's collection of short stories. It's a series of interconnected tales that takes us from “Café Society,” to “The Companion's Tale,” to “Aquarium.” With her biting humour, Wyatt creates a thought-provoking cast of characters, many of them seniors, who are not content to be overlooked or ignored.
Rachel Wyatt died peacefully, aged 94, in Victoria on July 7, 2024 surrounded by family.
