An award-winning poet, M. Travis Lane has also been one of Canada's most productive literary critics over the past fifty years, having contributed several hundred reviews to Canadian publications. Heart on Fist includes a generous selection of her most essential pieces. A perceptive and fearless writer, Lane's trenchant critiques span a wide cross-section of English Canadian poetry and Quebecois works in translation. The volume brings together for the first time early considerations of Milton Acorn, Al Purdy and Michael Ondaatje, with close readings of Judith Fitzgerald, George Elliott Clarke, Ann Simpson and A.F. Moritz, as well as recontextualizations of avant garde writers like Margaret Christakos and Jay MillAr. One of the few women of her time to develop and maintain a critical voice in Canadian letters, this is a landmark book at a point when readers are increasingly looking for diversity in their literary journalism.

One of Canada's most distinguished writers, M. Travis Lane lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She received her B.A. (Junior PBK) from Vassar College, and her M.A. and PhD. from Cornell University. She and her husband Lauriat Lane came to New Brunswick in 1960. Travis taught briefly at Cornell and at the University of New Brunswick and is a Honorary Research Associate with the English department at U.N.B. She is a member of the Voice of Women for Peace and a Raging Granny, a member of the Writer's Federation of New Brunswick and a Lifetime member of the League of Canadian Poets.

She has published nineteen books of poetry and two of prose. She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in Literary Arts, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in Literary Arts. She was also shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2015.

M. Travis Lane's profile page