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Paul Quarrington was a writer, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and musician. Born in 1953 in Toronto, he spent his childhood in Don Mills, Ontario, before eventually moving back to Toronto. Quarrington attended the University of Toronto for two years, before dropping out to pursue writing and music. Quarrington was a prolific writer, authoring ten novels, seven non-fiction works, several stage plays, and numerous scripts for Canadian films and television shows, as well as contributing work to newspapers and magazines such as the National Post. Quarrington was also a musician; he made up one half of the duo Quarrington/Hill with Dan Hill, and later Quarrington/Worthy with Martin Worthy, before becoming the lead singer and guitarist of the band Porkbelly
Futures.
Quarrington received numerous awards for his work, including a Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay for Perfectly Normal, the Stephen Leacock Award for his novel King Leary - which also won the 2008 Canada Reads competition - and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction for his novel Whale Music. His novel Galveston was also nominated for the Giller Prize. In 2009, Quarrington was awarded the Matt Cohen Award by the Writers Trust of Canada for his contributions to Canadian literature.
In May 2009, Quarrington was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. He spent the next months touring with Porkbelly Futures, working on his memoir Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Life and Music, writing screenplays, and being featured in the documentary film Paul Quarrington: Life in Music. Quarrington passed away on January 21, 2010.
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Toronto, 1953-2010.