The president and board of Stephen Leacock Associates is pleased to announce that Patrick deWitt is the winner of the 2024 Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel The Librarianist.
Patrick, who first won the Medal in 2012 for The Sisters Brothers, was presented with his second medal at a well-attended Gala Dinner, by the president of Stephen Leacock Associates, Daphne Mainprize.
The presentation was the culmination of a successful and entertaining weekend that started on Friday evening with a "Meet the Authors" and Student Showcase event hosted by two-time Medal winner Terry Fallis. The three winners of the Leacock student competition read their essays to an audience that was very appreciative of their humorous writing skills. This was followed by each of the shortlisted authors for the Medal reading excerpts from their books, then a Q&A session in which previous Medal winners, shortlisted and longlisted authors were peppered with questions from Josh Milligan (Associates treasurer) and the diners.
Saturday's dinner was amusingly hosted by Steve Patterson of the CBC's The Debaters. Various dignitaries including the mayors of Ramara, Severn and Orillia greeted the guests. Major sponsor Brad Dunkley (Dunkley Charitable Foundation) and Gala Dinner sponsor Chris Locke (Home Hardware) made their remarks, followed by the honorary Mayor of Mariposa, Trevor Cole, with his dissertation on the state of the world. King and country were toasted by Don McIsaac, Mayor of Orillia, and the memory of Stephen Leacock was toasted by Wayne Johnston, last year's Medal winner.
Authors John Levesque, Terry Fallis and Rod Carley talked up each of the shortlisted books, and then the 2024 winner, Patrick deWitt, was announced. Patrick made a short speech of thanks, and the evening concluded.
June 23, 2024
Patrons are advised to buy their tickets NOW for the weekend events, as the deadline for sales is looming. Unlimited numbers of tickets will be available up until midnight on Friday, June 7th. We have to inform our venue and their caterers about numbers ahead of time, so after that date a very limited number of tickets will be available.
BUY NOW to avoid disappointment!
June 6, 2024
ORILLIA, Ont. — The president and board of directors of Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.
In the running for the medal and $25,000 prize are, in alphabetical order by author surname:
Ali Bryan, Coq, (Freehand Books)
Ali Bryan's first novel, Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and was the official selection of One Book Nova Scotia. Her second novel, The Figgs, was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Ali lives in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies on Treaty 7 territory, where she has a wrestling room in her garage and regularly gets choked out by her family.
Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist (House of Anansi Press)
Patrick deWitt is the author of the novels French Exit (an international bestseller and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), The Sisters Brothers (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and a finalist for the Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
Deborah Willis, Girlfriend on Mars (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
Deborah Willis’s last short story collection, The Dark and Other Love Stories, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her first book, Vanishing and Other Stories, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009, and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for fiction. Her work has also appeared in The Walrus, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, and Zoetrope. She has worked as a bookseller at Munro’s Books in Victoria, BC, as a technical writer, and as a writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver, MacEwan University, and the University of Calgary. Deborah currently works as an editor at Freehand Books and lives in Calgary with her partner and daughter.
“The three finalists for the Leacock Medal of Humour in 2024 meet our judging criteria exceptionally well", said Daphne Mainprize, the President of the Stephen Leacock Associates. "The books must be humorous, well-written with a great degree of style and depth. Our national panel of independent judges has selected the three top humorous books from the past year from 74 entries.".
The winner will be announced on Saturday, June 22, 2024, at the Leacock Medal Gala Dinner where all three finalists will be celebrated, and a number of former winners will be in attendance. The M.C. for this event will be Steve Patterson (well known as the host of the CBC's The Debaters) and Trevor Cole (winner in 2011) will entertain everyone as the fictional Mayor of Mariposa. Tickets for this memorable event and for the “Meet the Authors” and Student Showcase event the previous evening (with two-time Medal winner Terry Fallis as M.C.) are available for purchase online up to June 7, 2024 at www.leacock.ca/gala.php.
May 21, 2024
The Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce the winners of their 2024 Student Humorous Short Story Competition.
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Sylvie Potje, University of Waterloo
Winner with |
Marcus DiCerbo, Carleton University, Ottawa
Runner-up with |
Iris Matthews, Bear Creek Secondary School, Barrie
Runner-up with |
The winner will receive $1,500 and each of the two runners-up will receive $750.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS, in alphabetical order by student surname, are:
“3 Course Meal of Struggle, Tears and Endless Madness” by Chiara Alfinito, University of Guelph.
“The Fateful Apology” by Ellery Bowman, Korah Collegiate and Vocational School, Sault Ste. Marie.
“01AudioFile.mp3” by Lena Brubacher, Huntsville High School.
“Buckington Jones and the Missing Muffin“ by Emma Gall, Parry Sound High School.
“Time Morsels“ by Shawn Xiao, Upper Canada College, Toronto.
Stephen Leacock Associates congratulates all the winners and those who received an honourable mention. The writing this year was of a hign calibre, and the judges were once again seriously challenged in choosing the winners.
May 15, 2024
The Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce the 2024 long list for the annual Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The three finalists for the award will be named on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, with the medal winner being announced on Saturday, June 22, 2024 at the Leacock Medal Award Gala Dinner in Orillia.
The long list for the 2024 Leacock Medal is (in alphabetical order by author surname):
| Bow, Erin | Simon Sort of Says | Scholastic Canada |
| Bryan, Ali | Coq | Freehand Books |
| Craig-Whytock, Suzanne | What Any Normal Person Would Do | Dark Winter Press |
| Craigie, Gregor | Radio Jet Lag | Cormorant Books |
| deWitt, Patrick | The Librarianist | House of Anansi Press |
| Mercer, Rick | The Road Years: A Memoir, Continued... | Doubleday Canada |
| Pagé, Lucie | Lost Dogs | Cormorant Books |
| Ping, William | Hollow Bamboo | HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. |
| Shelstad, Sam | The Cobra and the Key | TouchWood Editions |
| Vincent, Ron | Life at the Precipice | Self Published |
| Willis, Deborah | Girlfriend on Mars | Hamish Hamilton Canada |
This year, there are eleven books on the list rather than the usual ten, because three books tied for 9th place.
May 3, 2024
Activities ramping up for the Gala Weekend
Stephen Leacock Associates is pleased to announce that Orillia Home Hardware Building Centre has kindly agreed to sponsor the Leacock Medal for Humour Gala Dinner on June 22.
March 13, 2024
Tickets for this year's Gala Weekend events will be available for members to purchase from Friday, March 1st, and for the general public from Tuesday, March 12th. Before March 12, members will need to use the access code that has already been emailed to them. After that date, the access code is not required.
See our Gala Weekend page for more information, and to buy tickets or sponsor tables.
February 28, 2024
The Stephen Leacock Associates are delighted to announce that two well-known humourists will host the events of the Leacock Medal Gala Weekend.
Terry Fallis, who will host the "Meet the Authors" and Student Showcase event in the evening of Friday, June 21, is a two-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour and the award-winning author of nine national best-selling books. His most recent is A New Season, published in 2023 by McClelland & Stewart. The three finalists for the 2024 Leacock Medal will be introduced and will read excerpts from their books. In addition, the three winners of the Leacock Student Awards will be celebrated, and will read their humorous essays.
Steve Patterson of CBC Radio fame will host the Leacock Medal Gala Dinner on Saturday, June 22, at which the winner of the 2024 Leacock Medal for Humour will be announced. Between live stand-up comedy, his theatre show The Debaters Live on Tour, and his twice-weekly CBC Radio show The Debaters, Steve still has time to write, with his recent book The Book of Letters I Didn't Know Where to Send. The evening will include a proclamation by this years’ Mayor of Mariposa, Trevor Cole; a toast to Stephen Leacock, and past winners/authors will present a spotlight on the shortlisted authors before the announcement of the 2024 winner of the Leacock Medal.
Both evenings promise to be highly entertaining and full of laughter.
More information about the events can be found on our Gala Weekend page, and tickets may also be purchased there.
February 28, 2024
We now have opportunities for individuals and organizations to sponsor aspects of our Gala Weekend. Please see the information on the right lower part of this page.
February 27, 2024
Snapchat ad campaign initiated for student awardOur Snapchat campaign to reach Ontario students and inform them about the Student Humorous Essay Competition kicks off on February 24th. The deadline for submitting essays is April 15, 2024, and more infomation about the competition can be found on our student award page. We are using a single ad this year as shown here.
February 20, 2024
The board of Stephen Leacock Associates has made the decision to revert to June for the Gala Dinner and winner announcement. Dates for the short list and long list announcements have accordingly been adjusted. The dates are now as follows:
For details, please see our Leacock Medal page.
October 6, 2023
At the Leacock Medal Gala Dinner on Saturday, September 16th, Wayne Johnston was announced as the winner of the 2023 Leacock Medal for Humour for his memoir Jennie’s Boy, published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada. In an amusing acceptance speech to 125 attendees, Wayne recalled how, as an extra and a body double for Richard Harris in the movie Orca (1977), he appeared in one scene squashed between beautiful actors Charlotte Rampling and Bo Derek, and was advised by Rampling to become a doctor. On protesting that he really wanted to be a writer, she stated that he must indeed follow his inclinations, saying “Then you should be a writer!” Master of ceremonies was Morgan Murray, who bemoaned his status as the “second runner-up” in 2021, and encouraged student winner Sylvie Potje to persist in her writing so that she too could aspire to attaining the status of being a second runner-up!
Wayne succeeded in winning against the other two shortlisted authors, BC’s Susan Juby and Saskatchewan’s Zarqa Nawaz, and stated that he was surprised to win against two such talented writers.
The dinner was the culmination of a successful weekend of activities that started with a “Meet the Authors” and Student Showcase event hosted on Friday by two-time Medal winner Terry Fallis at which student winners Sylvie Potje and Chiara Alfinito read their humorous essays, and the shortlisted authors read excerpts from their books. The evening was rounded off by subjecting the seven humour authors in the room to a barrage of questions posed by Associates treasurer Josh Milligan and the audience. The authors lived up to their reputations by providing humorous and thoughtful answers that elicited immoderate laughter.
In the coming days, photos of all the events that took place will be posted on our Photo Gallery page.
(Photos: Tyler Evans, Orillia Matters)
September 17, 2023
ORILLIA, Ont. — The president and board of directors of Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. In the running for the medal and $25,000 prize are, in alphabetical order by author surname:
Wayne Johnston, Jennie's Boy, (Alfred A. Knopf Canada)Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. Widely acclaimed for his magical weaving of fact and fiction, his masterful plotting, and his gift for both description and character, his #1 nationally bestselling novels include The Divine Ryans, A World Elsewhere, The Custodian of Paradise, The Navigator of New York and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. His first book, The Story of Bobby O’Malley, published when he was just twenty-six years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Baltimore’s Mansion, a memoir about his father and grandfather, won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, published in 1998, was nominated for sixteen national and international awards including the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and was a Canada Reads finalist defended by Justin Trudeau.
Susan Juby, Mindful of Murder (HarperCollins Publishers)Susan Juby was raised in Smithers, BC and has lived in Toronto, Vancouver, and Nanaimo. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Getting the Girl, Another Kind of Cowboy and The Woefield Poultry Collective, as well as the bestselling Alice series (Alice, I Think; Miss Smithers; and Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last). Her first book, Alice, I Think, was adapted into a TV series on CTV. Rolling Stone called it one of the top forty young adult novels. Her memoir about her struggles with teenaged addiction, Nice Recovery, was a Globe and Mail best book of the year. Her most recent book for adults, Republic of Dirt, won the Leacock Medal for Humour. The Fashion Committee was a Horn Book Best Book of the Year and The Truth Commission was named a best book of the year by Barnes and Noble, the Globe and Mail, and Kirkus, and it was the winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Award for Children’s Literature and the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award. After dropping out of fashion college and getting a BA from the University of British Columbia, Susan went to work in the book industry and obtained a master’s degree in publishing. She currently lives on Vancouver Island, where she teaches creative writing at Vancouver Island University.
Zarqa Nawaz, Jameela Green Ruins Everything (Simon and Schuster Canada)Zarqa Nawaz is a Canadian film and television producer, public speaker, journalist, and former broadcaster. She is the author of the memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also created the hit CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, the world’s first sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West, and is the creator and star of the forthcoming series Zarqa. Zarqa lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with her loving but long-suffering family.
“The three finalists for the Leacock Medal of Humour in 2023 meet our judging criteria perfectly,” said Michael Hill, the President of the Stephen Leacock Associates. "The books must be humorous, well-written and show a great degree of style and depth. Our national panel of independent judges has selected the three top humorous books from the past year from 71 entries".
The winner will be announced on Saturday, September 16, 2023, at the Leacock Medal Gala Dinner where all three finalists will be celebrated, and a number of former winners will be in attendance. The M.C. for this event will be Morgan Murray (finalist in 2020) and Trevor Cole (winner in 2011) will entertain everyone as the fictional Mayor of Mariposa. Tickets for this memorable event and for the “Meet the Authors” and Student Showcase event the previous evening (with two-time Medal winner Terry Fallis as M.C.) are available for purchase online at www.leacock.ca/gala.php.
August 1, 2023
Matthew and Kathy Webb
Steve Clarke
Maureen Kenny
Jean Simonton and Richard Moorhouse
