Maggie Helwig (born 1961) is a Canadian poet, novelist, social justice activist, and Anglican priest.
Academic career Her early education was at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Kingston, Ontario, graduating in 1979,Canadian Forum; Apr2000, Vol. 79 Issue 887, p17, 3p, 1 Black and White Photograph then at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, where she graduated with honours with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983.
After reading for a Master of Divinity degree and serving as co-Head of Divinity at Trinity College, Toronto, she was ordained to the transitional diaconate in the Anglican Church of Canada at St. Paul's, Bloor Street, Toronto on 1 May 2011, and subsequently to the priesthood on 22 January 2012. On 27 November 2021, she was appointed an honorary Canon of St James' Cathedral, Toronto.
Bibliography Helwig's first novel, Where She Was Standing, is about the murder of a Canadian in Timor-Leste. Her second novel, Between Mountains, is a love story about a London-based Canadian journalist and a Serbian Albanian interpreter from Paris that endures the hardships that occurred during the war. The novel juxtaposes love and war within the characters while bringing about justice and truth.Grekul, Lisa. Canadian Literature, Fall 2005, Issue 186, p193-193, 1/2p
Her third novel, Girls Fall Down, 2008, was shortlisted for the 2009 Toronto Book Awards.City of Toronto, Toronto Book Awards - 2009: Maggie Helwig It won the Toronto Public Library's One Book Toronto in 2012. Jason McBride, writing in Toronto Life, described it as being "smart, suspenseful and compassionate."Jason McBride, "Text in the City", Toronto Life, April 2008; 42,4; CBCA Complete Finally, in a book review by Greg Doran, the novel is described as the narrator having a significant relationship with the "urban environment and the human spirit."Canadian Literature; Spring 2009, Issue 200, p152-154, 3p
She has also co-edited many anthologies of Canadian fiction and poetry, with collaborators including Bronwen Wallace, Douglas Glover, Mark Anthony Jarman and her father, David Helwig.Curriculum vitae, Maggie Helwig ; see also Oberon Press website, "All titles". Retrieved 28 December 2010.
Activism Helwig has been involved in social activist groups such as TAPOL, the East Timor Alert Network, and the International Federation for East Timor which campaigned against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. She has also worked with the Women in Black network, particularly during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.Interview by Annie Wilson , Published in Pulse Niagara, 7–13 August 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2010. She was also a well known advocate for Toronto's branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and was one of three clergy from different denominations ticketed for setting up a chapel at the Occupy Toronto "re-occupation" camp on May 1, 2012.
In 2022, on behalf of the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields, Helwig filed an interlocutory injunction request to prohibit the City of Toronto from removing a homeless encampment located alongside the Church on City of Toronto property. This request was denied by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, and the encampment was partially removed by the City in 2023. Helwig wrote her 2025 book Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community, winner of the 2025 Toronto Book Award, on this topic. The remainder of the encampment survived in a precarious situation in the following years, facing a series of violation notices from the City. It was forcibly cleared by the City in October 2025 following an order from Toronto Fire Services.
In 2026, she won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community.Cassandra Drudi, "Maggie Helwig wins Shaughnessy Cohen Prize". Quill & Quire, April 30, 2026.
Personal life Born in the United Kingdom, Helwig is the daughter of prominent Canadian writer David Helwig and theatre director and actor Nancy Helwig of Kingston, Ontario. She is married to editor Ken Simons and has one daughter.
Works
Poetry Walking Through Fire, 1981 Tongues of Men and Angels (Oberon Press, 1985) Eden, 1987 Because the Gunman, 1987 Talking Prophet Blues (Quarry Press, 1989) Graffiti for J.J. Harper, 1991 Eating Glass, 1994 The City on Wednesday, 1996 One Building In the Earth: New and Selected Poems (2002)
Fiction Gravity Lets You Down, 1997 (short fiction) Where She Was Standing, 2001 Between Mountains (2004) Girls Fall Down, 2008
Essays Apocalypse Jazz (1993) Real Bodies, 2002
Non-fiction
Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community (2025) Instructions for the End of the World: Homilies of Comfort and Resistance (2026)
See also Canadian literature Canadian poetry List of Canadian poets
References
External links