Tom Walmsley

Tom Walmsley (born December 13, 1948 in Liverpool, England) is a Canadian playwright, novelist, poet and screenwriter.[1]

Born in Liverpool, Walmsley came to Canada with his family in 1952, and was raised in Oshawa, Ontario, and Lorraine, Quebec.[1] He dropped out of high school and battled addictions as a young adult.[1]

In addition to his plays, Walmsley was the winner of the first Three-Day Novel Contest in 1979 for his novel Doctor Tin. He later published a sequel, Shades, and another unrelated novel, Kid Stuff. Walmsley wrote the screenplay for Jerry Ciccoritti's film Paris, France in 1993.[1] Ciccoritti also later adapted Walmsley's play Blood into a film.

Walmsley's style of writing ranges from the naturalistic to the poetic and, at times, the absurd. He moves easily between dramatic and comedic, and some of his "darkest" work is treated with a cutting sense of humour. His most common themes include sex (both hetero- and homosexual, often involving sado-masochistic fetishes, adulterous affairs, and, in the case of Blood, incest), violence, addiction (to alcohol and heroin in particular), and God (from a Christian perspective).[2] He rarely deals with politics directly, although he openly displays a distaste for middle-class morality and social conservative interpretations of Christianity.[2]

Early in his career, Walmsley summarized his sense of personal identity as "blond, stocky, below average height, uncircumcised, bisexual, tattooed, with bad teeth and very large feet".[3]

Plays
  • The Workingman, 1975
  • The Jones Boy, 1977
  • Something Red, 1978
  • White Boys, 1982
  • Getting Wrecked, 1985
  • Mr. Nice Guy, (with Dolly Reisman)1985
  • Maxine, 1995 (performance piece)
  • Blood, 1995 (ISBN 1896239641)
  • Delirium, 2006
  • 3 Squares a Day, 2006
  • Descent, 2006
  • The Nun's Vacation 2012

Poetry
  • Rabies, 1975
  • Lexington Hero, 1977
  • Sin, 2005
  • Honeymoon in Berlin, 2005
  • What Happened, 2007
  • Concrete Sky, 2009
  • Rich and Dead as Dogs, 2012
  • Sunday, Monday and Tuesday Weld, 2013

Novels
  • Doctor Tin, 1979 (ISBN 0-88978-254-7)
  • Shades, 1992 (ISBN 0889782547)
  • Kid Stuff, 2004 (ISBN 1551521539)
  • Dog Eat Rat, 2009 (978-1-894469-42-5)

Screenplays
  • Paris, France, 1993
  • Blood, 2005 (adaptation by Jerry Ciccoritti)

Libretto

Julie Sits Waiting 2012

References
  1. Tom Walmsley at the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.
  2. "Finding sobriety and God". The Globe and Mail, December 5, 1995.
  3. "White Boys 'a first' for Walmsley: Playwright says he has exorcised all of the violent demons within"]. The Globe and Mail, May 12, 1982.


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