Geoffrey Ursell | |
---|---|
Born | Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan | March 14, 1943
Died | February 21, 2021 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | (aged 77)
Occupation | playwright, novelist, poet |
Nationality | Canadian |
Years active | 1970s-2021 |
Notable works | Perdue, or How the West Was Lost, Saskatoon Pie |
Spouse | Barbara Sapergia |
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]
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]