Awards
King Leary won the Stephen Leacock Award in 1988, and Whale Music won the 1989 Governor General's Award for Fiction.
Galveston, published in the United States as Storm Chasers, was nominated for the prestigious Giller Prize. He lost to Alice Munro — which, Quarrington stated afterward, "was hard to feel upset about. It's like losing to Chekhov."
In February 2008, King Leary was put forward by Dave Bidini as one of the five books considered on CBC Radio's Canada Reads. Bidini ultimately prevailed, and King Leary was named the book that everyone in the nation should read.
His short film Pavane, adapted from his novel The Ravine, garnered a Remi Platinum Award Houston's WorldFest, was juried in several other US festivals, and was broadcast in Canada on Bravo!FACT Presents and CBC Reflections. He and the creative team for ShowCase earned the CFPTA Indie Award for Comedy for the series Moose TV.
In 2009, the Writers' Trust of Canada awarded Quarrington its Matt Cohen Prize for a distinguished lifetime contribution to Canadian literature.
On June 10, 2010, Quarrington was posthumously awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by Nipissing University. His daughter Carson accepted the award on his behalf.
Read more about this topic: Paul Quarrington