W. P. Kinsella - Early Life

Early Life

William Patrick Kinsella was born to Irish American parents John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten, the family moved to Edmonton.

He did not go to school until the fifth grade, and did not attend university until he was in his mid-30s. Kinsella was not exposed to literature in school, claiming in a 2010 interview, "One Shakespeare play and one J. M. Barrie play was the total literature of my high school years."

Kinsella's literary education in his formative years came from reading and by attending all the plays at high school and any theatrical productions that made it to Edmonton. He also worked in the school library his senior year.

As an adult, he held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi.

Though he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing there in 1974. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in English degree through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary.