Rick Salutin
Encyclopedia
Rick Salutin is a Canadian
novelist, playwright
, journalist
, and critic and has been writing for more than forty years.
Until October 1, 2010, he wrote a regular column in the Globe and Mail; on February 11, 2011, he began a weekly column in the Toronto Star
. He currently teaches a half course on Canadian media and culture in University College (UNI221) at the University of Toronto
. He is a contributing editor of This Magazine. He got his Bachelor of Arts degree in Near Eastern and Jewish Studies
at Brandeis University
and got his Master of Arts degree in religion at Columbia University
. He also studied philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York
. He was once a trade union organizer in Toronto and participated in the Artistic Woodwork strike.
Rick Salutin is very interested in communication and praises Harold Innis
, an economist who taught at the University of Toronto
, and creator of the Staples Thesis
, for his outlook in communications. Salutin has a child with the fifth estate
journalist Theresa Burke
, whom he has cited as the model for the characters Amy Bert and Antia in The Womanizer.
, Macleans, Canadian Business
, Toronto Life
, Weekend, Saturday Night
, Quest
, TV Times
, Today, and This Magazine
. He wrote "The Culture Vulture" column for many years in This Magazine
and received National Newspaper awards for it.
He won the National Newspaper Award for best columnist for a column he wrote in the Globe and Mail.
He introduced cartoon strips to This Magazine
and convinced Margaret Atwood
to regularly collaborate. She made a cartoon strip called "Kanadian Kultchur Komics”.
In Waiting for Democracy: A Citizen’s Journal (1989), he expresses his thoughts on the federal election in 1989 and writes about interviewing people before the election.
’s book Fanshen and was produced by Toronto Workshop Productions. The Adventures of an Immigrant shows that he is concerned about poverty and other hardships in Western Society. His unpublished Maria was a drama on CBC television
about a woman fighting to put factory workers in the union. His first published play was 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt about the revolt led by William Lyon Mackenzie
. This play was created at Theatre Passe Muraille
and produced on CBC television
in 1975.
1837 won the Chalmers award for best Canadian play in 1977.
His most successful play, Les Canadiens (1977), helped written by goaltender Ken Dryden, won him the Chalmer Outstanding Play award. Rick Salutin helped found The Guild of Canadian Playwrights and in 1978 became chairman.
Another play he wrote is “Joey” (1981).
He won the Toronto Arts award for writing and publishing.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
novelist, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, and critic and has been writing for more than forty years.
Until October 1, 2010, he wrote a regular column in the Globe and Mail; on February 11, 2011, he began a weekly column in the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
. He currently teaches a half course on Canadian media and culture in University College (UNI221) at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
. He is a contributing editor of This Magazine. He got his Bachelor of Arts degree in Near Eastern and Jewish Studies
Jewish studies
Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history , religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages , political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies...
at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
and got his Master of Arts degree in religion at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He also studied philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He was once a trade union organizer in Toronto and participated in the Artistic Woodwork strike.
Rick Salutin is very interested in communication and praises Harold Innis
Harold Innis
Harold Adams Innis was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory and Canadian economic history. The affiliated Innis College at the University of Toronto is named for him...
, an economist who taught at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, and creator of the Staples Thesis
Staples thesis
The staples thesis is a theory of Canadian economic development. The theory “has its origins in research into Canadian social, political, and economic history carried out in Canadian universities…by members of what were then known as departments of political economy.” From these groups of...
, for his outlook in communications. Salutin has a child with the fifth estate
The fifth estate
the fifth estate is a Canadian television newsmagazine, which airs on the English language CBC Television network. The name is a play on the fact that the media are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, and was chosen to highlight the program's determination to go beyond everyday news into...
journalist Theresa Burke
Theresa Burke
Theresa Frances Veronica Burke is a Canadian writer, journalist and producer for the CBC's television newsmagazine, the fifth estate...
, whom he has cited as the model for the characters Amy Bert and Antia in The Womanizer.
Journalism
Rick Salutin has written in many magazines, including HarpersHarper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Macleans, Canadian Business
Canadian Business
Canadian Business is the longest-publishing business magazine in Canada. It was founded in 1928 as The Commerce of the Nation, the organ of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The magazine was renamed Canadian Business in 1933...
, Toronto Life
Toronto Life
Toronto Life is a monthly Canadian magazine about entertainment, politics and life in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Life also publishes a number of annual special interest guides about the city, including Home Decor, Stylebook, Eating & Drinking, Real Estate and Weddings. Established in 1966,...
, Weekend, Saturday Night
Saturday Night (magazine)
Saturday Night was a Canadian general interest magazine. It was founded in Toronto, Ontario in 1887.The publication was first established as a weekly broadsheet newspaper about public affairs and the arts, which was later expanded into a general interest magazine. The editor, Edmund E. Sheppard,...
, Quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
, TV Times
TV Times
TVTimes is a television listings magazine published in the United Kingdom by IPC Media, a subsidiary of Time Warner. It is known for its access to television actors and their programmes. In 2006 it was refreshed for a more modern look, increasing its emphasis on big star interviews and soaps...
, Today, and This Magazine
This Magazine
This Magazine is an independent alternative Canadian political magazine. It was launched "by a gang of school activists" in 1966 as This Magazine is About Schools, a journal covering political issues in the education system...
. He wrote "The Culture Vulture" column for many years in This Magazine
This Magazine
This Magazine is an independent alternative Canadian political magazine. It was launched "by a gang of school activists" in 1966 as This Magazine is About Schools, a journal covering political issues in the education system...
and received National Newspaper awards for it.
He won the National Newspaper Award for best columnist for a column he wrote in the Globe and Mail.
He introduced cartoon strips to This Magazine
This Magazine
This Magazine is an independent alternative Canadian political magazine. It was launched "by a gang of school activists" in 1966 as This Magazine is About Schools, a journal covering political issues in the education system...
and convinced Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
to regularly collaborate. She made a cartoon strip called "Kanadian Kultchur Komics”.
In Waiting for Democracy: A Citizen’s Journal (1989), he expresses his thoughts on the federal election in 1989 and writes about interviewing people before the election.
Drama
Rick Salutin has an interest in drama and performing arts. His first play, Fanshen, unpublished, was adapted from William HintonWilliam H. Hinton
William Howard Hinton was an American farmer and prolific writer. A Marxist, he is best known for his book Fanshen, published in 1966, a "documentary of revolution" which chronicled the land reform conducted by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s in Zhangzhuangcun , sometimes translated as...
’s book Fanshen and was produced by Toronto Workshop Productions. The Adventures of an Immigrant shows that he is concerned about poverty and other hardships in Western Society. His unpublished Maria was a drama on CBC television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
about a woman fighting to put factory workers in the union. His first published play was 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt about the revolt led by William Lyon Mackenzie
William Lyon Mackenzie
William Lyon Mackenzie was a Scottish born American and Canadian journalist, politician, and rebellion leader. He served as the first mayor of Toronto, Upper Canada and was an important leader during the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion.-Background and early years in Scotland, 1795–1820:Mackenzie was...
. This play was created at Theatre Passe Muraille
Theatre Passe Muraille
Theatre Passe Muraille is a theatre company in Toronto, Canada.-Brief history:One of Canada's most influential alternative theatres, Theatre Passe Muraille was founded in 1968 by director and playwright Jim Garrard, who started the company out of Rochdale College.Its radical intention was create a...
and produced on CBC television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
in 1975.
1837 won the Chalmers award for best Canadian play in 1977.
His most successful play, Les Canadiens (1977), helped written by goaltender Ken Dryden, won him the Chalmer Outstanding Play award. Rick Salutin helped found The Guild of Canadian Playwrights and in 1978 became chairman.
Another play he wrote is “Joey” (1981).
Novels
His first novel, A Man of Little Faith, is about a religious man discovering himself in a Jewish community. It received the W.H. Smith Books in Canada First Novel Award. His books Marginal Notes: Challenges to the Mainstream and Living in a Dark Age are based on many of his articles from This Magazine.He won the Toronto Arts award for writing and publishing.
Book Review
Taken from a book review of The Womanizer: "It's both lively and witty, but not as light as it might seem on first glance."Books
- Kent Rowley: A Canadian Union Life - 1980
- Marginal Notes: Challenges to the Mainstream - 1984
- Good Buy Canada! - 1975 (with Murray Soupcoff and Gary Dunford)
- A Man of Little Faith - 1988 (winner of the 1989 Books in Canada First Novel AwardBooks in Canada First Novel AwardThe Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a literary award given annually to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976....
) - Waiting for Democracy - 1989
- Living in a Dark Age - 1991
- The Age of Improv - 1995
- The Womanizer - 2002