Atwood and Engel, Bowering and Kroetsch and Wiebe, Laurence and Munro and Thomas, these and many other writers published their first fiction volumes in the 1960s, a period of immense activity in writing and publishing as well as in public affairs. The Canada Council’s support of writers and publishers was slowly bearing fruit, giving them financial assistance to write and publish their works. Canada was proclaiming a new sense of pride in its own nationhood.