Wayne Johnston (writer)

Fiction

His first novel, The Story of Bobby O'Malley—which was written while he was a graduate student—won the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1985.^[1][2]

His second novel, The Time of Their Lives, won the Air Canada/Canadian Authors Association Award for Most Promising Young Canadian Writer in 1988.^[3] His novel won the 1991 Thomas Head Raddall Award and was subsequently adapted into a film of the same name.^[4] Johnston wrote the screenplay for the film, which won best screenplay in the Atlantic Film Festival and was nominated for an ACTRA Award.^[3]

Johnston's breakthrough novel, 1998's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction.^[5][6] It was acclaimed for its portrayal of historical Newfoundland politician Joey Smallwood.^[7][8] The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was adapted into a play by Robert Chafe.^[9] The novel was chosen for the 2003 edition of CBC Radio's Canada Reads competition, where it was championed by politician Justin Trudeau.^[10]

Johnston's The Custodian of Paradise, published in 2006, tells the story of Sheilagh Fielding, a fictional character originally introduced in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.^[11] In 2002, Johnston published The Navigator of New York, a historical novel about the race by Robert Peary and Frederick Cook to reach the North Pole; it was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction.^[12][6] The Custodian of Paradise (2006), A World Elsewhere (2011), and The Son of a Certain Woman (2013) were longlisted for theGiller Prize.^[13][14][15]

Johnston was awarded the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award in recognition of his contribution to Canadian literature in 2011.^[16] In April 2014, Johnston was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his novel The Son of a Certain Woman.^[17]

In 2017, his novel First Snow, Last Light was released, with the fictional character Sheilagh Fielding returning for the third time.^[18] In 2021, he published The Mystery of Right and Wrong.^[19] The Novice of Holloway Hall was published in 2026.^[20]

Non-fiction

Johnston has also published non-fiction. His Baltimore's Mansion (1999), is a memoir about his father and grandfather. It won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize.^[21]

His 2022 memoir Jennie's Boy recounts his childhood in Newfoundland and won the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.^[22][23]

Academic appointments

For the spring of 2002, Johnston was the Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.^[24] He returned to Hollins University in 2004 as the Distinguished Chair in Creative Writing, a position he held until 2009.^[1]

In 2009, his lecture at the University of Alberta was published as the 48-page book The Old Lost Land of Newfoundland: Family, Memory, Fiction and Myth in the Henry Kreisel Lecture Series.^[25] Johnston has delivered a number of lectures at institutions including the John Adams Institute in the Netherlands.^[26]

Novels

• The Story of Bobby O'Malley (1985)
• The Time of Their Lives (1987)
• The Divine Ryans (1990)
• Human Amusements (1994)
• The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1998)
• The Navigator of New York (2002)
• The Custodian of Paradise (2006)
• A World Elsewhere (2011)
• The Son of a Certain Woman (2013)
• First Snow, Last Light (2017)
• The Mystery of Right and Wrong (2021)
• The Novice of Holloway Hall (2026)

Memoir

• Baltimore's Mansion (1999)
• Jennie’s Boy (2022)

Short stories

• )"Catechism". The Walrus. July 2005.
• "The Montreal Canadiens". Original Six: True Stories from Hockey's Classic Era. Edited by Paul Quarrington. Reed Books. 1996. ISBN 978-0-433-39752-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)