The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour (usually the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, or just the Stephen Leacock Award) is an annual literary award presented to the best work of humorous literature in English by a Canadian writer. The award is a tribute to well-known Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (1869–1944), and is accompanied by a cash prize of $15,000 (CAD). It is presented each year during a banquet ceremony in Leacock’s hometown of Orillia, Ontario.
The Leacock Associates is the organising body behind the award, and was founded in 1946 by a loose group of Leacock’s friends and supporters. Each year the Associates’ board of directors appoints a panel of suitable judges from around the country, who select from submitted works a short list of five books. It is one of the oldest literary prizes in Canada, and is the only one awarded to a work of humour.
The cash prize began in 1970, as a $2,500 award co-sponsored by Manulife Insurance and the Hudson's Bay Company. The following decades saw gradual increases in the amount of the prize under a number of donors, reaching its current value of $10,000 in 2002, sponsored by the TD Bank Financial Group.
In 1969 the Associates established a quarterly newsletter called The Newspacket to commemorate the centenary of the author’s birth. The publication prints excerpts from nominated books, and is itself a showcase for Canadian humour writing. In 1977 the group established a Student Award for Humour, which honours young writers from secondary and post-secondary levels.
Read more about Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal For Humour: Winners
Famous quotes containing the words stephen, leacock, memorial and/or humour:
“Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody,”
—James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892)
“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.”
—Stephen Leacock (1869–1944)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Right as the humour of melancholy
Causeth full many a man in sleep to cry
For fear of blacke bears, or bulles black,
Or elles blacke devils will them take.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)