Canada is home to some of the biggest female writers in North American history — women whose works have helped to build this country’s literary identity, brick by brick. How did these iconic women make it big in a man’s world? How did they overcome the obstacles they faced by the dozen? For many of Canada’s literary foremothers, their most valuable tool was the ever-elusive nom de plume.

After all, when society tells her that women can’t write, what’s a girl to do but don the costume — or, in this case, the name — of a man to infiltrate the bookshelves of readers around the world?