The story was lost in one of the family moves. His father, a plastering contractor, had played minor league baseball but young Bill did not play himself until the family moved to Edmonton when he was 10.Īt 14 he won a YMCA contest with Diamond Doom, a two-page story about a murder weapon hidden under the turf in a baseball stadium. William Patrick Kinsella was born in Edmonton on May 25, 1935, and raised on a farm near Darwell, west of Edmonton, where he was home-schooled by his mother. Even if you fail, you've still taken a risk.' Salinger character says to farmer Ray Kinsella: 'If I had my life to live over again, I'd take more chances. Steele couldn't stop thinking about on Friday was from Shoeless Joe – a line the J.D. It was an assisted death, under the provisions of Bill C-14. Kinsella died Friday afternoon in Hope, B.C.

His question he would ask as a writer was: What if? What if Shoeless Joe Jackson comes back from the dead? … And when you start asking that 'what if' question, anything's possible.' And I think when you look at his baseball fiction, that's what it is. There's no limit to how far somebody can hit a ball, there's no limit to how far somebody can throw a ball, it's endless possibilities. You can play an infinite number of innings until somebody wins. 'He always said with baseball, anything's possible,' says Willie Steele, Mr. Kinsella, baseball wasn't simply a game – it was poetry, and a metaphor for life. Last year he received the Order of Canada.For Mr. He’s the only Canadian to win the prestigious Houghton-Mifflin Literary Award. He has won international critical acclaim and many awards, including the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor for The Fencepost Chronicles. He keeps houses in both Canada and California.Īnd he’s devilishly good at his job. Director Norman Jewison is this year releasing a movie based on Dance Me Outside.

He sold the rights to Shoeless Joe, on which Field of Dreams was based, for $250,000. ”And academics derive sexual stimulation from it.” PROVINCE Because TV evangelism proves you obviously don’t have to believe any of what you say to be successful.” Kinsella once told me he floods his fiction with religious imagery because it’s fun and it sells. ”And academics derive sexual stimulation from it.”Ĭaustically, he adds: ”In another life, if I knew what I know now, I’d get into TV evangelism. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

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