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July 3, 2009
Writer awarded medal
Leiren-Young got his comedy start at VTT.
MICHELLE DODEK
Mark Leiren-Young has more on the go at this moment than most people pack into a decade. In addition to writing and producing two films this year, he is releasing a CD, managing at least eight web pages and is engaged in various stages of production for numerous TV scripts. He also has a new book due for release this fall, not to mention he writes regularly for newspapers. On top of it all, he was recently awarded the prestigious Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor for his first book, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen: A Rookie Reporter in the Cariboo.
"On March 31st, I had a cool book and, on the afternoon of April 30th, I had a literary career," said Leiren-Young, who lives part of the year in Maui and the rest of the time travelling between Gibsons, B.C., and various cities to pitch and promote his work.
With this award, he has joined the likes of Canadian literary icons Farley Mowatt, Mordechai Richler and Robertson Davies. "I can't think of an honor I'd rather win as a writer," said Leiren-Young.
Published in October, the second printing is already out, with the medal on the cover. It is now widely available across the country and its author has been catapulted into literary fame. "Almost every writer that I have ever met has tracked me down to congratulate me – people I haven't talked to in 20 years," commented Leiren-Young, who accepted his honor in a ceremony in Orillia, Ont., on June 13.
"When you receive this award, you don't give an acceptance speech," Leiren-Young said. "It's a keynote address. You're expected to entertain the crowd for at least 30 minutes." He included in his speech a story about the first experience he had with "writing" a TV script.
"I wrote my first funny stories at Talmud Torah and was sent to the principal's office more than once as a result," Leiren-Young explained. He spoke of an assignment in Grade 6 or 7 that required something to be translated into Hebrew. After taping an episode of a TV show he said he found funny but didn't really understand, called Hot L Baltimore, the young writer translated it word for word by searching in the Hebrew-English dictionary. "I didn't look up the meaning of the words, I just copied the words down and put them together. The show was about junkies and prostitutes and I didn't know what either one of those was, but it was the word prostitute that got me into trouble, I think."
Since then, Leiren-Young has had many original, English-language scripts on most networks, including YTV and Disney. He now writes regularly for the Tyee and the Georgia Straight and has many projects on the go in television and film as well.
In August of 2007, The Green Chain, a movie written and produced by Leiren-Young, was released at the World Film Festival in Montreal. The film's release has had a spin-off effect for Leiren-Young's career in that the soundtrack features music from his environmental comedy singing duo, Local Anxiety. As a result of the movie's popularity, a distributor called Leiren-Young and asked about Local Anxiety's new CD.
At the time, there was no new CD. Local Anxiety was started in 1991 with a friend, Kevin Crofton, as a vehicle for environmental and political satire. Laughing about the content of his songs, Leiren-Young said, "When we toured in Toronto in the '90s, they asked us to skip the stuff about dolphins, whales and trees. Now, finally, the rest of the country has caught up to what people in B.C. cared about then." So he and Crofton decided to re-release the songs about environmental comedy on their CD Greenpieces.
This leaves Leiren-Young busier than ever. He's promoting The Green Chain and his short, The Green Film, as well as his new CD. He is working on an upcoming TV special, also called Greenpieces, and will soon release his second book.
Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer and a mother of two young children.
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