Kinsella, W.P.

Persona

Kinsella, W.P.

25 May 1935-16 Sep. 2016

William Patrick "W. P." Kinsella was a novelist and short story writer, best known for his novel "Shoeless Joe" (1982), which was adapted into the movie "Field of Dreams" in 1989. His work often concerned baseball, First Nations people, and other Canadian issues. Kinsella was born in Edmonton, Alberta, the son of Irish Canadian parents, Olive Mary (née Elliott/Elliot), a printer, and John Matthew Kinsella, a contractor.

Kinsella held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi. Though he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing there in 1974. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in English degree through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary.

Kinsella received an honorary Doctor of Literature from the University of Victoria in 1991, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993, and received the Order of British Columbia in 2005.

Kinsella died on 16 September 2016.

Borrador

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Biographical sketch based on the Wikipedia article on W.P. Kinsella at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._P._Kinsella (accessed 29 June 2018).