Geoffrey Ursell

Geoffrey Ursell (March 14, 1943 – February 21, 2021)^[1] was a Canadian writer, who won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1985 for his novel Perdue, or How the West Was Lost.^[2]

Career

Predominantly known as a playwright, Ursell's stage and musical plays included The Running of the Deer (1981), Saskatoon Pie (1982),^[3] The Willowbunch Giant (1983), The Secret Life of Railroaders (1986),^[4] The Rum Runners of Rainbow Ravine (1990), The Park (1994), Deer Bring the Sun (1998),^[5] Gold on Ice (2003),^[6] Winning the Prairie Gamble (2005),^[7] The Walnut Tree (2010)^[8] and Dead Midnight (2011).^[9] He also adapted The Rum Runners of Rainbow Ravine as a CBC Radio drama, and wrote the teleplay Distant Battles for CBC Television.^[1]

With his wife Barbara Sapergia and colleagues Bob Currie and Gary Hyland, Ursell was a cofounder of Coteau Books in the 1970s.^[1] In 1987, Ursell and Sapergia pitched a series to CBC Television called Midnight in Moose Jaw, a sitcom-variety hybrid set in a Prohibition-era speakeasy which would have centred around live performances by real comedians and musicians,^[10] with Jenny Jones and Colin James as the guest performers in the pilot.^[10] The series was not picked up by the CBC.

His other published books included the poetry collections Trap Lines (1982), The Look-Out Tower (1989) and Jumbo Gumbo: Songs, Poems, and Stories for Children (1990),^[1] and the short story collection Way Out West (1990).^[11]

He served as president of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild and the Saskatchewan Playwrights' Centre, was writer-in-residence for the Saskatoon Public Library^[12] and the Winnipeg Public Library, was an editor of the literary magazine Grain,^[13] and taught literature and creative writing at the University of Regina.^[1]

References