Thomas King

Early Life and Education

The son of a Greek mother and a Cherokee father, Thomas King failed his first year of university and took a series of jobs that included craps dealer and bank teller. In 1964, he worked his way across the Pacific on a steamer and found employment in New Zealand and Australia as a photographer and photojournalist. Returning to the United States in 1967, King attended Chico State University, and later worked as an administrator and teacher at Humboldt State University and the University of Utah, where he received a PhD in 1986.

The Move to Canada and Early Work

Thomas King emigrated to Canada in 1980, later accepting a position in Native Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. It was during this time that he began writing serious fiction. His first novel, Medicine River (1990), received considerable critical praise, and was made into a CBC film. The novel was runner up for the 1991 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

One Good Story, That One (1993) is a collection of ten short stories, including King’s often anthologized "The One about Coyote Going West." A children's book, Coyote Sings to the Moon, appeared in 1998, and the novel Truth and Bright Water was published in 1999.

Into the 21st Century

In 2002, Thomas King published a detective novel, Dreadful Water Shows Up under the pseudonym Hartley GoodWeather. Critics and reviewers praise King's funny and poignant portrayal of the challenges facing Indigenous peoples in Canada in the past and today. His characters are strong in the face of oppression and prejudice, but they are also fallible in endearingly humorous ways. In 2004, he published a follow-up to his award-winning Coyote Sings to the Moon, titled Coyote’s New Suit, in which Raven, an iconic figure in many Indigenous cultures, questions the quality of Coyote’s snazzy brown suit (see also Raven Symbolism). The short story collection A Short History of Indians in Canada appeared in 2005. In 2006, he published another book as Hartley GoodWeather, The Red Power Murders: A DreadfulWater Mystery. The DreadfulWater Mystery series continued, although no longer under the name Hartley GoodWeather, with Cold Skies (2018), A Matter of Malice (2019), Obsidian (2020) and Deep House (2022).

Non-fiction and Other Activities

Thomas King spent 1993–94 as story editor for Four Directions, a CBC Television dramatic series by and about Indigenous peoples. He wrote and starred in the very funny Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, which aired on CBC Radio from 1997–2000.

King has edited Indigenous fiction anthologies, such as All My Relations (1990) and First Voices, First Words (2001), and collections of critical essays such as The Native in Literature (1987). In 2003, King was the first Indigenous person in Canada to deliver the Massey Lectures. His presentation, titled The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, was later published by House of Anansi Press. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America was released in 2012. The book was later turned into a film in 2020 produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

King has worked on and written multiple films including Medicine River (1993), I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind (2007) and the animated short A Short History of Indians in Canada (2017).

Politics

On 30 March 2007, it was announced that Thomas King would be the New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate for Guelph, Ontario, as part of the by-election called as a result of Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain’s resignation. King’s candidacy was endorsed by then NDP leader Jack Layton. The by-election was cancelled when, on 14 October 2008, a federal general election was called. King lost, coming in fourth behind winner Frank Valeriote of the Liberals, Conservative candidate Gloria Kovach, and Green candidate Mike Nagy.

Awards and Honours

Four of King’s works — A Coyote Columbus Story (1992), Green Grass, Running Water (1993), The Back of the Turtle (2014) and Indians on Vacation (2020) — were nominated for Governor General’s Literary Awards. The Back of the Turtle (2014) won the English Fiction Governor General’s Literary Award in 2014. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America won the 2014 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction as well as the prestigious RBC Taylor Prize. Additionally, Daniel Poliquin’s translation of The Inconvenient Indian won The Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation (English to French). Green Grass, Running Water (1993) won the 1994 Canadian Authors Award for fiction. A Short History of Indians in Canada (2005) won the 2006 McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award.

In 2004, King was named a Member of the Order of Canada. He was promoted to a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2020. In 2012, King was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. He is professor emeritus at the University of Guelph, where he taught at the School of English and Theatre Studies department.