W.P. (“Bill”) Kinsella, Canadian writer, died today at his home in Hope, B.C., age 81. CBC Obituary for Bill Kinsella
The day an acquaintance excitedly called me to share that W.P. Kinsella was interested in playing Scrabble with us, I was packing to leave the country. My husband and I did meet Bill a few years later, at a Scrabble tournament. They played a few games together; I occasionally chatted Bill up between match-ups.
I had been warned that Bill was not thrilled with how his Frank Fencepost chronicles were adapted in “Dance Me Outside”, a Bruce McDonald film whose screenwriter I also knew, and that he could be grumpy. We didn’t find this to be the case at all: Bill had a great time at tournaments, and when he moved away from the Vancouver area, formed a Scrabble club in his new territory. At a Victoria tournament, a bonus cash prize was offered for “highest-scoring Victoria word” and Bill submitted “PENISES” (Victoria is British Columbia’s provincial capital). He was down-to-earth and approachable, and very funny.
His work has often concerned baseball, First Nations people, and other Canadian issues. He was best known for the novel Shoeless Joe, later adapted into the movie “Field of Dreams”, but I recommend his short story collections The Thrill of the Grass and The Alligator Report, the latter an homage to one of Bill’s favourite writers, Richard Brautigan.
His death is a significant loss to us in several ways. We lost a friend, and we lost a major Canadian author.
