William Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC is a Canadian novelist and short story writer who is well known for his novel Shoeless Joe , which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams in 1989. His work has often concerned baseball, First Nations people, and other Canadian issues. William Patrick Kinsella was born to Irish American parents John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people... who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten, the family moved to Edmonton. He did not go to school until the fifth grade, and did not attend university until he was in his mid-30s. Kinsella was not exposed to literature in school, claiming in a 2010 interview, "One Shakespeare play and one J. M. Barrie play was the total literature of my high school years." Kinsella's literary education in his formative years came from reading and by attending all the plays at high school and any theatrical productions that made it to Edmonton.
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