{{Short description|Canadian writer (born 1958)}} {{Use dmy dates|date= November 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Paul Nicholas Mason | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1958}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | spouse = Nathalie Paulin | education = | awards = | known_for = novelist, playwright, and actor | website = }}
'''Paul Nicholas Mason''' (born 1958) is an English-born Canadian novelist, playwright, and actor.<ref name="profile " >{{cite web |title=Paul Nicholas Mason: author profile |url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1665665.Paul_Nicholas_Mason |website=www.goodreads.com |publisher=Goodreads |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref>
==Early years== Mason was born in London, England.<ref name="imdb " >{{cite web |title=Paul Nicholas Mason |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8054866 |website=www.imdb.com |publisher=IMDb |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> He lived as a child in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and British Columbia before settling in southern Ontario, where he finished high school. After graduating from Trent University in Peterborough with an honors degree in English Literature,<ref>{{cite web |title=Paul Nicholas Mason |url=https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/authors/profile/view/url/paul-nicholas-mason |website=www.dramaticpublishing.com |publisher=Dramatic Publishing |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> and a B.Ed. from Queen's University at Kingston, he taught English and Drama for 32 years at Lakefield College School. He published his first novel in 2005<ref>{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Theresa |title=The Night Drummer comes to life with Paul Mason |url=https://www.mykawartha.com/whatson-story/5552913-the-night-drummer-comes-to-life-with-paul-mason |website=www.mykawartha.com |publisher=Peterborough This Week, April, 2015 |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> and retired from teaching in 2015.<ref name="farewell " />
==Career as a novelist== Mason's first novel, ''Battered Soles'', was published by Turnstone Press in 2005.<ref name="bsgoogle " >{{cite book |title=Battered Soles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OD8gAQAAIAAJ | year=2005 |publisher=Turnstone Press | isbn=9780888013057 |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> The novel celebrates a fictional pilgrimage from Peterborough, Ontario, to the small village of Lakefield, where there is, Mason asserts, a statue of a blue-skinned Jesus with healing powers in the basement of St. John's Anglican Church. The tone of the novel is comic but there are moments of pathos.<ref name="bsgoogle " /> It was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2005.<ref name="open book " >{{cite web |title=Open Book Interview |url=http://openbooktoronto.com/news/lucky_seven_interview_with_paul_nicholas_mason/ |publisher=Open Book |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630102354/http://openbooktoronto.com/news/lucky_seven_interview_with_paul_nicholas_mason/ |access-date=22 November 2022|archive-date=30 June 2015 }}</ref>
Mason's second novel, ''The Red Dress'', was published by Turnstone in 2008.<ref name="rdgoogle " >{{cite book |title=Paul Nicholas Mason, The Red Dress |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmdWJgAACAAJ | year=2008 |publisher=Turnstone | isbn=9780888013361 |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> The story of a 17-year-old young man growing up poor and confused in rural Ontario, it is darker than ''Battered Soles,'' but the ending is cautiously hopeful.{{CN|date=November 2024}} ''The Red Dress'' was long-listed for the 2009 ReLit award. <ref name="open book " />
Mason's third novel, ''The Night Drummer'', was published by Vancouver's Now or Never Press in 2015.<ref>{{cite web |title=Review |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-926942-76-6 |website=www.publishersweekly.com |publisher=Publishers Weekly |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> It is the story of two teenage friends—white middle-class Peter Ellis, and Otis James, a native boy adopted by an evangelical Christian couple old enough to be his grandparents. Peter and Otis grow up in small town Ontario in the 1970s, and the novel follows them through their high school years. "As Ellis sleeplessly anticipates his high school's looming 25-year reunion, his recollections balance moments of encroaching darkness with plenty of joyous light," says Publishers Weekly. "Ellis’s memories of first loves and jobs and an endearingly oddball assortment of friends, including Otis, a preternaturally wise and kind Ojibwe boy adopted by devout Caucasian parents, give this portrait a welcome sweetness that draws attention to the innocence, sheer possibility, and blithe lightheartedness of youth."<ref>{{cite web |title=Review |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-926942-76-6 |website=www.publishersweekly.com |publisher=Publishers Weekly |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref> A review in the Autumn 2017 issue of ''The Link'' reads, "The 1970s were a vibrant time of progressive change, and with its evocation of growing up in that wonderful era ''The Night Drummer'' makes for fascinating and entertaining reading."
A fourth novel, ''The Rogue Wave'', was published in April 2021.<ref name="non " >{{cite web |title=Books |url=https://nonpublishing.com/the-rogue-wave> |website=nonpublishing.com |publisher=NonPublishing |access-date=11 June 2025}}</ref> Canadian librarians voted it one of three "Most Anticipated Canadian books published" that month.
A fifth novel, ''To Our Graves'', was released in March of 2024.<ref name="non " /> "The idea that anyone could be the killer is at the centre of ''To Our Graves'', the newest novel from Paul Nicholas Mason," reads the review in ''The Miramichi Reader''. "Surprising and welcome...It made me want to check out Mason's other books as well." Michelle Berry, writing on the Wolsak & Wynn blog, says, "Fast-paced, gripping and engrossing, Mason plays with the idea of whether or not this crime was committed by forces inside the school or by someone coming in from outside. The setting of this Canadian private school is incredibly realistic and entrancing."<https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/blog/2024/10/15/unputdownable-canadian-mysteries-and-thrillers>
According to a post on Mason's author page on Facebook, his sixth novel, ''Sackville House,'' is to be published by Now or Never of Vancouver in the Fall of 2026. The book is apparently inspired by Evelyn Waugh's ''Brideshead Revisited''.
Mason's plays ''The Discipline Committee'' and ''Circles of Grace'' (1995)<ref name="profile " /> have been produced in Canada, Ireland and the United States. His play ''Sister Camille's Kaleidoscopic Cabaret'' won the Christians in Theatre Arts Full Length Play award in 1996, and premiered in Michigan in 1998.<ref name="farewell " >{{cite web |title=Farewell to Thespian and English Teacher Paul Mason |url=https://issuu.com/lakefieldcs/docs/summer_fall_2015_grove_news/22 |website=issuu.com |publisher=Lakefield College School magazine, 2015 |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref>
Now or Never published Mason's first children's book, ''A Pug Called Poppy'', in the fall of 2017.<ref name="profile " />
==Bibliography== *''The Discipline Committee'' Woodstock, Illinois: Dramatic Publishing, 1995. *''Circles of Grace'' Woodstock, Illinois: Dramatic Publishing, 1995. *''Battered Soles'' Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2005. *''The Red Dress'' Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2008. *''The Night Drummer'' Vancouver: Now or Never Publishing, 2015. *''Jim's Star & Other Christmas Stories'' Peterborough: House Nash Press, 2015 *''A Pug Called Poppy'' Vancouver: Now or Never Publishing, 2017. *''Maisie's Bench'' Peterborough: House Nash Press, 2021 *''The Rogue Wave'' Vancouver: Now or Never Publishing, 2021 *''To Our Graves'' Vancouver: Now or Never Publishing, 2024
==Career as an Actor== Mason began a new career in 2015 as a voice-, television- and film-actor. He has principal roles in several independent feature films, including ''Super Detention'', ''The Witches' Ball'', ''Darts'', ''Santa's Castle'', ''Bloodslinger'', ''Christmas with a Prince: the Royal Wedding'', and ''Love by Accident'', and supporting roles in ''The Customer'', ''The Mechanical Boy'' and ''Speak Your Mind''. (He has several smaller roles in a number of other films.) He also has small principal roles in the CBS television series ''Blood & Treasure'' and Brain Power Studio's ''The Jane Mysteries'', and appears briefly in single episodes of series such as ''Anne with an E'', ''Man Seeking Woman'', ''Rabbit Hole'', ''PonySitters Club'' and ''TallBoyz''. He has also done voice-overs for, among other campaigns, the Mirvish production of ''Harry Potter & the Cursed Child''.<ref name="imdb " />
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmD2AeFtXMw/ Clip from ''Speak Your Mind''] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8U2Roa1QoY/ Clip from ''A Dog in Paris''] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn8Q3by3Ivs/ Clip from ''The Customer''] * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M3jqjNS2fs/ Clip from ''The Mechanical Boy''] * [http://www.mykawartha.com/whatson-story/5552913-the-night-drummer-comes-to-life-with-paul-mason/ Article on Mason] in ''Peterborough This Week'', duplicated on mykawartha website * [https://web.archive.org/web/20150630102354/http://openbooktoronto.com/news/lucky_seven_interview_with_paul_nicholas_mason/ OpenBookToronto interview with author] * [https://www.mykawartha.com/whatson-story/7577794-author-actor-paul-mason-releases-first-children-s-novel-that-s-set-in-peterborough/ Article on Mason in ''Peterborough This Week''] * [https://www.thestar.com/local-clarington/entertainment/books/2021/04/09/newcastle-author-s-new-book-making-waves.html?fbclid=IwAR1khAvNPY0d-OPf3NOQiObZFHEpKrvqoSOvVky6J3Fd2oB7pryOa9_h3Ho Article about ''The Rogue Wave in the star.com''] * [https://brocke.substack.com/p/writing-through-the-broken-pieces Substack interview with Mason by Brock Eldon]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Paul Nicholas}} Category:20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Category:21st-century Canadian novelists Category:Canadian schoolteachers Category:Canadian male novelists Category:Canadian children's writers Category:Teachers of English Category:Drama teachers Category:Living people Category:1958 births Category:Canadian male dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century Canadian male writers Category:21st-century Canadian male writers Category:Writers from London Category:Trent University alumni Category:Queen's University at Kingston alumni