About Peter Cumming
and His Writing
 

Peter Cumming has been an actor, director, playwright, teacher, educational consultant, and writer. His published works include fiction for adults and children, poetry, journalism (in magazines from Chickadee to Quill & Quire), educational writing, local history, children's books, and plays. Peter has done readings and writing and drama workshops for children and young people and their teachers in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Qučbec, Ontario, North Dakota, and the Northwest Territories.

Peter's bilingual play, Ti-Jean, tells the story of the French Canadian folk hero of that name, and his bilingual play, Snowdreams, was winner of The Toronto Board of Education's Canada-wide playwriting competition for Canada Festival. Written to be performed by and for high school students, Snowdreams has been produced in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. Swift Current Comprehensive High School's production of Snowdreams was judged best overall production and represented southwest Saskatchewan at the provincial drama festival in April 1993; Chatham-Kent Secondary School's production was named best overall production at the local level of the Sears Drama Festival in March 1995. A revised version of Snowdreams is now available in the high school drama anthology, Cues and Entrances (Gage Educational, 1993).

Peter's picture book, A Horse Called Farmer, has been translated into French, German, Danish, and Welsh. His children's novel, Mogul and Me, was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction. His most recent picture book, Out on the Ice in the Middle of the Bay, now in a special 10th anniversary edition, was a finalist in the 1993 Mr. Christie's Book Awards, was designated a "Notable" Book by the Canadian Library Association, was awarded the 1995 Tiny Torgi Award for its PrintBraille version, has been translated into Japanese, and its illustrations were nominated for the Amelia Frances Howard Gibbon Illustrator's Award. All three books have been chosen as "Our Choice" books by the Canadian Children's Book Centre.

In 1990, Peter was awarded a Hilroy Fellowship for innovative teaching with student and adult writers in the eastern Arctic. As a writer, and as a Secondary Programs Consultant for the Baffin Divisional Board of Education, N.W.T., Peter has been actively involved in promoting student writing and publishing, the uses of computers in writing and desktop publishing, and the use of telecommunications in student writing. Peter has coordinated bookmaking projects, student literary magazines, student book publishing, and professional development for teachers in writing, publishing, and telecommunications. Peter's critical writing was awarded the 1994 George Wicken Prize in Canadian Literature by Essays on Canadian Writing.  His long poem "Places Close to Ellesmere and Other Home Movies" was a finalist in the 1998 Canadian Literary Awards.

Peter is a member of the Writers' Union of Canada, the Playwrights Union of Canada, Canadian Society of Authors, Illustrators, and Performers for Children (CANSCAIP), the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English, the Children's Literature Association, andthe International Research Society for Children's Literature. Peter has taught children's literature, drama, Native literatures, and expository and creative writing at the universities of Western Ontario and Guelph.  He is an Assistant Professor of Children's Literature and Culture in the Children's Studies Program and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Division of Humanities at York University in Toronto.  He has presented academic papers in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Alaska, Japan, and across Canada and the United States.