W. P. Kinsella
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC (born May 25, 1935) is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His work has often concerned baseball and Canada's First Nations and other Canadian issues.
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Kinsella received his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Victoria in 1974 and his Master of Fine Arts in English through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. In 1991 he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria.
Kinsella's most famous work is Shoeless Joe, upon which the movie Field of Dreams was based. A short story by Kinsella, "Lieberman in Love", was the basis for a short film that won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film – the Oscar win came as a surprise to the author, who, watching the award telecast from home, had no idea the film had been made and released. He had not been listed in the film's credits, and was not acknowledged by director Christine Lahti in her acceptance speech – a full page advertisement was later placed in Variety apologizing to Kinsella for the error. Kinsella's short stories about life on a First Nations reserve were the basis for the CBC television series The Rez.
Before becoming a professional author, he worked as a scout for the Atlanta Braves and was a professor of English at the University of Alberta. Kinsella suffered a car accident in 1997 which resulted in the end of his fiction writing career. He is a noted tournament Scrabble player, becoming more involved with the game after being disillusioned by baseball's 1994 work stoppage. He currently lives in Yale, British Columbia with his wife Barbara, and occasionally writes articles for various newspapers.
In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia.
[edit] Selected bibliography
- Dance Me Outside - 1977
- Scars - 1978
- Shoeless Joe Jackson Goes To Iowa - 1980
- Born Indian - 1981
- Shoeless Joe - 1982 (winner of the 1983 Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship)
- Moccasin Telegraph - 1983
- The Thrill of the Grass - 1984
- The Last Pennant Before Armageddon - 1984
- The Alligator Report - 1985
- Five Stories - 1985
- The Iowa Baseball Confederacy - 1986
- The Fence Post Chronicles - 1986 (winner of the 1987 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour)
- Red Wolf, Red Wolf - 1987
- The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt - 1988 (U.S. title: Go the Distance)
- The Miss Hobbema Pageant - 1989
- Box Socials - 1991
- The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories - 1993
- Brother Frank's Gospel Hour - 1994
- The Winter Helen Dropped By - 1995
- If Wishes Were Horses - 1996
- Magic Time - 1998
- The Secret of the Northern Lights - 1998
- Baseball Fantastic - 2000
- Japanese Baseball and Other Stories - 2000
