David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards, CM, ONB (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet.

Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, Richards left St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, three credits shy of completing a BA.^[1] Richards has been a writer-in-residence at various universities and colleges across Canada, including the University of New Brunswick. He is currently the Artist in Residence at St. Thomas University.

Richards has received numerous awards including 2 Gemini Awards for scriptwriting for Small Gifts and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down", the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. Richards is one of only three writers to have won in both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the Governor General's Award. He won the 1988 fiction award for Nights Below Station Street and the 1998 non-fiction award for Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. He was also a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children. In 2009, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to the Canadian literary scene as an essayist, screenwriter and writer of fiction and non-fiction".^[2] In 2011 he received the Matt Cohen Prize.

In 1971, he married the former Peggy McIntyre. They have two sons, John Thomas Richards and Anton Richards, and reside in Fredericton as of December 2012.^[3][4]

The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick administers an annual David Adams Richards Prize for Fiction.^[5]

Richards' papers are currently housed at the University of New Brunswick.^[6]

In 2014, the Halifax singer-songwriter Dan MacCormack released an album of songs inspired by Richards' novels, called Symphony of Ghosts. The title was taken from a line in Mercy Among the Children.^[7]

Bibliography

Novels

David Adams Richards talks about Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul on Bookbits radio.

• The Coming of Winter (1974)
• Blood Ties (1976)
• Lives of Short Duration (1981)
• Road to the Stilt House (1985)
• Nights Below Station Street (1988, winner of the 1988 Governor General's Award for fiction)
• Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (1990)
• For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993, nominated for a Governor General's Award, winner of the 1994 Thomas Head Raddall Award)
• Hope in the Desperate Hour (1996)
• The Bay of Love and Sorrows (1998)
• Mercy Among the Children (2000) (co-winner of the Giller Prize)
• River of the Broken-Hearted (2004)
• The Friends of Meager Fortune (2006) (longlisted for the Giller Prize)
• The Lost Highway (2007) (longlisted for the Giller Prize, Nominated Governor General's Awards 2008 Governor General's Award)
• Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul (2011)
• Crimes Against My Brother (2014)

Poetry

• Small Heroics (1972) (chapbook)

Plays

• The Dungarvon Whooper (1975)
• Water Carrier, Bones and Earth (1983)
• Hockey Dreams (2009)

Short stories

• Dancers at Night (1978)
• Dane (1978)

Non-fiction

• A Lad From Brantford and Other Essays (1994)
• Hockey Dreams: Memories of a Man Who Couldn't Play (1996)
• Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998, winner of the 1998 Governor General's Award)
• Extraordinary Canadians: Lord Beaverbrook (2008)
• God is. (2009)
• Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Way of Life (2011)

References

General

• "Non-Judgmental Truth: An Interview with David Adams Richards" by Craig Proctor, Blood & Aphorisms (Winter 1998)

Notes

External links

• David Adams Richards at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• "David Adams Richards - Lord Beaverbrook" (mp3). The Brad Brooks Show. CKNW. 18 May 2008. Retrieved 10 March 2010. 
• CBC Digital Archives – David Adams Richards, Canada Reads author