Tom Walmsley

Who is Tom Walmsley?

Tom Walmsley is a Canadian playwright, novelist, poet and screenwriter.

Born in Liverpool, Walmsley came to Canada with his family in 1952, and was raised in Oshawa, Ontario and Lorraine, Quebec. He dropped out of high school and battled addictions as a young adult.

In addition to his plays, Walmsley was the winner of the first Three-Day Novel Contest in 1979 for his novel Doctor Tin. He later published a sequel, Shades, and another unrelated novel, Kid Stuff. Walmsley wrote the screenplay for Jerry Ciccoritti's film Paris, France in 1993. Ciccoritti also later adapted Walmsley's play Blood into a film.

Walmsley's style of writing ranges from the naturalistic to the poetic and, at times, the absurd. He moves easily between dramatic and comedic, and some of his "darkest" work is treated with a cutting sense of humour. His most common themes include sex, violence, addiction, and God. He rarely deals with politics directly, although he openly displays a distaste for middle-class morality.