Dan Needles
Dan Needles is best known as the playwright behind the popular Wingfield Series, which has played across Canada for many years. It was performed at the Stratford Festival of Canada and was aired, in part, on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Bravo Channel. Needles' childhood was divided between Toronto and his family's farm at Rosemont, Ontario. While working as editor for a local newspaper in Shelburne, he created the character of Walt Wingfield, a retired stockbroker turned farmer who told about his adventures on the farm in weekly letters to the editor. In 1985, Needles launched  the series with 'Letter From Wingfield Farm' performed by actor Rod Beattie. Six sequels followed, including "Wingfield's Progress" (1987), "Wingfield's Folly" (1990), "Wingfield Unbound" (1997), "Wingfield on Ice" (2001), "Wingfield's Inferno" (2005), and "Wingfield: Lost and Found" (2009). Needles currently writes columns for "Country Guide Magazine" and "Small Farm Canada". His book "With Axe and Flask, The History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present" was the winner of the 2003 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. His most recent book is a collection of the first through seventh Wingfield plays entitled "Wingfield's  World". "Letters From Wingfield Farm" and "Wingfield's Hope" contain the first through third and fourth through sixth plays, respectively. Needles' other plays include "The Perils of Persephone", "Ed's Garage" and "The Last Christmas Turkey". On December 26, 2014, Dan Needles was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada by David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, for "celebrating our rural communities as the playwright of the much-loved Wingfield Farm series, and for championing the dramatic arts outside of Canada’s major centres."