W. P. Kinsella

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William Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC (born May 25, 1935, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) is a noted novelist who mainly writes about Canada's First Nations and baseball.

His 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 Kinsella, 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 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.

Kinsella received his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Victoria in 1974, his Master of Fine Arts in English through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978, and an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria in 1991.

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.

In 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia.

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