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Clark Blaise

writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ1095680
Source-derived summary

Clark Blaise, OC (born April 10, 1940) is a Canadian-American author. He was a professor of creative writing at York University, and a writer of short fiction. In 2010, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Early life and education

Blaise was born in Fargo, North Dakota, to Canadian parents who lived in the United States. His mother, Anne Marion Vanstone, was English-Canadian and from Wawanesa, Manitoba, and his father, Leo Romeo Blaise, was of French-Canadian descent and was a furniture salesman and long-distance traveller. Later on, his father would inspire the father characters in Blaise's fiction. Growing up, his family moved constantly throughout the U.S. Before the eighth grade, he had already moved 30 times; ultimately, he attended 25 different schools. From ages six to ten, he lived in Florida. Throughout his childhood, Blaise also lived in Alabama, Georgia, communities in the American Midwest, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Winnipeg. When Blaise was nineteen, his parents divorced.

Editorial summary

“Clark Blaise” enters the record as writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clark, Blaise and writer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1940-04-10. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Clark, Blaise and writer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Clark Blaise” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Clark, Blaise and writer provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1095680. VIAF identifies the subject as 7439147. The Library of Congress control number is n50008515. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940 and 2010.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Clark Blaise”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Clark Blaise primary sources, Clark Blaise archive and Clark research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Clark Blaise”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Clark Blaise” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.