| Until now, Dan Needles has
probably been best known as the author of a series of one-man plays
featuring Walt Wingfield, the stockbroker turned farmer who left the city
life for the rural experience of Persephone Township. This has all
changed with the publication of With Axe and Flask. Now he will also
be known as a historian who has managed to weave authentic Canadian history
through the lives of the imaginary citizens of Persephone Township... a man
who has breathed life into the romance of Upper Canada through activities in
Petunia Valley.
Dan, himself, spent half of his childhood in
the city and half on the family farm in the vicinity of Rosemont, Ontario.
Following university, he worked as editor of the Shelburne, Ontario
newspaper. It was here that Walt Wingfield came to life...writing a
series of weekly letters to the editor. These letter became the plays we
know as the “Wingfield Series”; the latest one being Wingfield on Ice,
written in 2001.
Dan writes columns for two publications;
Petunia Valley Sideroad for Country Guide Magazine and True Confessions from
the Ninth Concession for Harrowsmith Country Life. |
