NEWS RELEASE
STEPHEN LEACOCK ASSOCIATES
*************************
The president and board of Stephen Leacock Associates are pleased to announce that Rick Mercer is the winner of the 2022 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his memoir, Talking to Canadians, published by DoubleDay Canada.
The award of the medal is accompanied by a prize of $25,000.
Rick Mercer co-created and performed on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created and starred in Made in Canada, and created and starred in Talking to Americans, the most watched comedy special in Canadian television history. He went on to host the hugely successful Rick Mercer Report for 15 seasons.
Rick was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 for his work with charitable causes and “his ability to inspire and challenge Canadians through humour.” In 2019, he received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award. He is from Middle Cove, N.L.
The two runners-up, Mark Critch (for his memoir, An Embarrassment of Critch’s, published by Viking Canada) and Dawn Dumont (for her novel, The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour, published by Freehand Books) each receive a prize of $4,000.
The board congratulates all the winners for their splendid efforts. It also acknowledges and appreciates the efforts of all the authors who submitted books for this year’s medal.
A Canada-wide panel of judges had narrowed 78 initial submissions to form a long list of 10 highly recommended works, with only three books eventually being selected for the short list.
The medal winner was announced at the Leacock award gala dinner on Saturday, Sept. 17. Owing to the COVID-19 disruptions of the past two years, the winner and runners-up were celebrated together with the winners and runners-up of 2020 and 2021.
The Leacock Medal is named in memory of Stephen Leacock, humorist, author, economist and lecturer, and is generously sponsored by the Dunkley Charitable Foundation.
More information about the Leacock Medal is available on the Leacock Associates’ website at leacock.ca, on the Leacock Medal Facebook page, and on Twitter @LeacockMedal.
*************************
