Mark Leiren-Young
Mark Leiren-Young is an award-winning author, filmmaker, playwright and performer based in Victoria, BC.
Described by The National Post as “Canada’s go to guy for dolphins, whales and trees,” Mark Leiren-Young's best-selling book The Killer Whale Who Changed the World (which tells the story of Moby Doll) won the 2017 Science Writers and Communicators Book Award.
He has three books about orcas for younger readers due out in 2020. Orcas Everywhere is an all-ages book about the orcas featured in the Orca exhibit and also looks at other amazing orcas around the world. Orcas of the Salish Sea is a picture book about the endangered southern residents orcas. Big Whales, Small World introduces babies to the world of whales.
Mark wrote and directed the award-winning documentary, The Hundred-Year-Old Whale, and hosts the Skaana podcast - which features stories about orcas, oceans, eco-ethics and the environment.
Mark has also been dubbed "Canada’s greenest writer." Many of his projects feature a green theme, such as his award winning films, The Green Film (a comedy short about going green), and his feature "The Green Chain," (starring Tricia Helfer and August Schellenberg).
As half of the popular comedy duo "Local Anxiety" (with Kevin Crofton), he released the 2009 CD "Greenpieces," and cuts from the satirical album have been featured on CBC Radio and NPR.
Leiren-Young's first full-time journalism job was at "The Williams Lake Tribune," a small newspaper in Williams Lake, British Columbia. He turned these experiences into a comic memoir, Never Shoot A Stampede Queen, which won the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
His news and feature writing, humour pieces, reviews and columns have appeared in a host of publications in Canada and the U.S., including Time, Maclean's and The Utne Reader.
Mark also has extensive television writing credits, with over 100 hours of produced work. His love of comic books inspires his work on a number of animated series, including ReBoot and Beast Wars: Transformers. He also has many credits writing for drama series, and credits include PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal and Blood Ties.
Mark's plays have been produced around the world. His most popular play, "Shylock," about the tensions surrounding theatre's most famous Jewish character. Shylock just finished a three year run in Prague (in Czech) and is published by Anvil Press.
