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Honours Award

Canada Reads

Moose Jaw Weather

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
Festival 2004    July 22 - 25

Ken Mitchell

Ken Mitchell was born in Moose Jaw, the eldest of ten children in a farming family. He has taught at the University of Regina English department since 1967 though he has also been a visiting professor at the Universities of Edinburgh, Victoria, Nanjing, China and the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, China. Mitchell is the author of over twenty books of fiction, poetry and dramas, ten of which have been have been plays. 

His latest book is The Heroic Adventures of Donny Coyote, published in 2003. Perhaps Mitchell is best known for his stage dramas, beginning with the prize-winning one-act play Heros, first produced in 1971.  In 1980, Mitchell wrote the screenplay for the film Hounds of Notre Dame, which garnered him a Genie Nomination (1981). His drama about Norman Bethune, Gone the Burning Sun, won the Canadian Author Association Award for Best Canadian play. 

In 1999 Mitchell was honoured for his work "as a literary ambassador" by induction into the Order of Canada.  He co-founded the Saskatchewan Writers Guild in 1969, Grain Magazine in 1973, the Saskatchewan Writers/Artists colony in 1978 and the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre in 1982.  In 2000 Ken received the first University of Regina Distinguished University Professor Award for his significant contributions in teaching, scholarly work and public service.