Kevin Major
Writing
September 12, 1949
76 years old
Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Biography
Kevin Major is the author of 20 books, for both young people and adults. The first, Hold Fast, won several awards in Canada and was placed on the Hans Christian Andersen Honour List. It was released in 2014 as a feature film. His second book, Far From Shore, was the winner of the first Canadian Young Adult Book Award. Others which followed include Blood Red Ochre and Eating Between the Lines, winner of the CACL Book-of-the-Year Award.
In 1992 Kevin was given the Vicky Metcalf Award, for an outstanding body of work of significance to young people. The languages into which his work has been translated include French, Danish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew.
An adult novel, No Man’s Land, about the Newfoundland Regiment in World War I, was published in 1995 to much acclaim. Kevin’s adaption of the story was brought to the stage by Rising Tide Theatre and has played for more than a dozen years.
His more recent books include the Christmas classic The House of Wooden Santas, and a history of Newfoundland and Labrador: As Near To Heaven By Sea (a Canadian best-seller and finalist for the Pearson Non-Fiction Prize). Ann and Seamus, a verse novel released in 2003 was shortlisted for a total of ten awards. It has since been turned into an opera. The adult novel New Under the Sun was published in 2010, book one of a trilogy of historical fiction. The second, Found Far and Wide, was released in 2016, and the third, Land Beyond the Sea, in 2019.
In 2018 Kevin started a projected serious of crime novels with One for the Rock. He anticipates the second will arrive in bookstores in the fall of 2020.
Kevin has been named Memorial University’s Alumnus-of-the-Year, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council’s Artist-of-the-Year .
John Moss, writing in “A Reader’s Guide to the Canadian Novel,” has said, “Kevin Major is among the best Canadian writers of his generation. He has established himself as a figure of singular importance in our literature.”
He lives in St. John’s, NL with his wife Anne. They have two grown sons.