Rank Songbirds

Leon Rooke is an energetic and prolific storyteller whose writing is characterized by inventive language, experimental form and a wide range of engaging and often absurd characters with distinctive voices. He has written plays for radio and stage and produced numerous collections of short stories. It is his novels, however, that have received the most critical acclaim. Fat Woman (1980) was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and won the Paperback Novel of the Year Award. Shakespeare's Dog won the Governor General's Award in 1983 and toured as a play as far afield as Barcelona and Edinburgh. A Good Baby was made into a feature film. Rooke founded the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 1989. In 2007, Rooke was invested into the Order of Canada. He lives in Toronto.