Mark Leiren-Young

Mark Leiren-Young is the author of the comic memoir Never Shoot a Stampede Queen—A Rookie Reporter in the Cariboo, which won the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, has been made into a stage play and is currently being adapted for film—as is his most recent memoir, Free Magic Secrets Revealed. His latest book about Moby Doll, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, is being released by Greystone in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation.

As a journalist, Mark has written for TIME, Maclean’s, The Hollywood Reporter and most of Canada’s major daily newspapers. He has written two non-comic books of non-fiction—The Green Chain: Nothing is Ever Clear Cut, a collection of interviews dealing with the future of our forests, and This Crazy Time, written with/about controversial environmentalist Tzeporah Berman.

As a playwright, Mark has written comedy, drama, plays for young audiences, musicals, and revues and in 2012 he debuted his first piece as a solo performer, Greener Than Thou, an autobiographical comic monologue about the challenges of going green. His plays have been produced throughout North America and also staged in Europe and Australia. Mark has received three Writers Guild of Canada nominations, and wrote and co-starred in the EarthVision award-winning TV special Greenpieces: The World’s First Eco-Comedy.