Will Aitken is an American-Canadian novelist, journalist and film critic. Richard Burnett
"Montreal author Will Aitken revives Death in Venice"
. '' Xtra!'', January 26, 2012. Originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, he has been based in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

since moving to that city to attend

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

in 1972. In Montreal, he was a cofounder of the city's first

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term i ...

bookstore, Librairie L'Androgyne, in 1973. He has also worked as an arts journalist and film critic for a variety of media outlets,"Aitken goes big on Japan"
'' Eye Weekly'', September 21, 2000. including the CBC, the BBC,

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from othe ...

, '' The Globe and Mail'', ''

Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...

'', ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

'', '' Christopher Street'' and the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

''. He published his first novel, '' Terre Haute'', in 1989. He has since published two further novels. He taught

film studies Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies ...

at Dawson College in Montreal. In 2011, he published ''Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic'', a critical analysis of

Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, stage director, and screenwriter. A major figure of Italian art and culture in the mid-20th century, Visconti was one of the fat ...

's 1971 film '' Death in Venice'', as part of Arsenal Pulp Press's Queer Film Classics series. His 2018 book, ''Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove and the Art of Resistance'', was published by University of Regina Press. The book was a shortlisted finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction."Writers' Trust short lists reveal familiar faces"
'' The Globe and Mail'', September 26, 2018.

Works

Novels

*'' Terre Haute''. 1989, . *''A Visit Home''. 1993, . *''Realia''. 2000, . *''The Swells''. 2021, .

Non-fiction

*''Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic''. 2011, . *''Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove, and the Art of Resistance''. 2018, .

Anthologies

*''Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism'' (ed.

Peter Dubé Peter Dubé is a Canadian writer, who has published novels, short stories and essays.20th-century American novelists 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American male journalists American film critics Canadian male novelists Canadian film critics Canadian gay writers American LGBT novelists Writers from Montreal Dawson College faculty Writers from Terre Haute, Indiana Living people McGill University alumni 20th-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian LGBT novelists 21st-century Canadian male writers Novelists from Indiana 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American essayists Canadian male non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers {{Canada-journalist-stub