Wayne Johnston (born May 22, 1958) is a Canadian novelist. His fiction deals primarily with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, often in a historical setting. In 2011 Johnston was awarded the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award in recognition of his contribution to Canadian literature.
Early life and education
Johnston was born on May 22, 1958, in Goulds, Newfoundland, and graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in English. He worked for three years as a reporter for the St. John's Daily News.
His second novel, The Time of Their Lives, won the Air Canada/Canadian Authors Association Award for Most Promising Young Canadian Writer in 1988. His novel won the 1991 Thomas Head Raddall Award and was subsequently adapted into a film of the same name. Johnston wrote the screenplay for the film, which won best screenplay in the Atlantic Film Festival and was nominated for an ACTRA Award. It was acclaimed for its portrayal of historical Newfoundland politician Joey Smallwood. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was adapted into a play by Robert Chafe. The novel was chosen for the 2003 edition of CBC Radio's Canada Reads competition, where it was championed by politician Justin Trudeau.
Johnston's The Custodian of Paradise, published in 2006, tells the story of Sheilagh Fielding, a fictional character originally introduced in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. In 2002, Johnston published The Navigator of New York, a historical novel about the race by Robert Peary and Frederick Cook to reach the North Pole; it was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction.
Johnston was awarded the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award in recognition of his contribution to Canadian literature in 2011. In April 2014, Johnston was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his novel The Son of a Certain Woman.
In 2017, his novel First Snow, Last Light was released, with the fictional character Sheilagh Fielding returning for the third time. In 2021, he published The Mystery of Right and Wrong. The Novice of Holloway Hall was published in 2026.
Non-fiction
Johnston has also published non-fiction. His Baltimore's Mansion (1999), is a memoir about his father and grandfather. It won the inaugural Charles Taylor Prize.
His 2022 memoir Jennie's Boy recounts his childhood in Newfoundland and won the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.
Academic appointments
For the spring of 2002, Johnston was the Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. He returned to Hollins University in 2004 as the Distinguished Chair in Creative Writing, a position he held until 2009. Johnston has delivered a number of lectures at institutions including the John Adams Institute in the Netherlands.
Honours and awards
- 1985 SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award for The Story of Bobby O'Malley
- 2007 Doctor of Letters from Memorial University of Newfoundland
- 2011 Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award