Author BioTimothy FindleyTimothy Findley is originally from Toronto, Ontario. He was born in 1930 and grew up in the Rosedale neighborhood of Toronto. Growing up, Timothy Findley knew he wanted to be an artist in some capacity. He studied dance and later acting, which was more successful. While acting, he met one of his current lifelong friends; the actress Ruth Gordon. Gordon convinced Findley that writing was his true talent and that he should pursue it with greater concentration. So Findley stopped acting after his first story was published in The Tamarack Review to concentrate on his writing. Findley had trouble receiving recognition since his first two books, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969). It was The Wars that gave Findley the recognition he deserved; he received the Governor General's Literary Award for this novel. In the early years of his writing career, Findley also wrote screenplays for television, radio and film. The greatest success of his film career came from the television series The Whiteoaks of Jalna and The National Dream; for which he received an ACTRA award for co-writing with his partner, William Whitehead. After The Wars, Findley published six more popular novels, two short story collections, and Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook (1990), a collection of articles, journal entries, and reminiscences. Findley was very active in the writing community; he helped found the Canadian Writers' Union and served as its president. He has also been president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International and is also active in Artists Against racism. In addition to this, Findley has won numerous awards including the Canadian Authors Association Award, the Order of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Award and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada..