Des Kennedy is an accomplished novelist and satirist as well as a celebrated gardening writer and speaker. The author of eight books, in both fiction and non-fiction, he has been three times nominated for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humor.

The Globe and Mail described Living Things We Love To Hate, as “a howlingly funny, unbearably enlightening, relentlessly fascinating and endearingly charming collection of essays.” Reviewing Crazy About Gardening, the prestigious American magazine Horticulture noted: “It is a rare delight to discover a compelling new voice in garden writing, and Kennedy’s is a fascinating one.” The Times-Picayune of New Orleans praised An Ecology of Enchantment for the book’s “languid, poetic prose” adding, “his meditative style is a natural response to the meditative nature of gardening, so that regardless of what Kennedy writes about, the mere way in which he writes it evokes the tranquility of his craft.” Chicago Botanic Garden described The Passionate Gardener, which contains many of the horticultural satires for which Kennedy is well known on the garden club and garden show circuit, as “a wonderful tale filled with stunning ideas.” Author Jane Rule characterized his first novel The Garden Club as “rich with local legends, yarns, gossip, political controversy all contained in the seasonal rhythms of rural life. A beautifully written, funny, hopeful book.” The Vancouver Sun called his novel Flame of Separation “a gem of a book” that exhibits “power and grace” and “an open-hearted novel the likes of which are too rarely seen.” Poet Gary Geddes called Kennedy’s latest fiction, Climbing Patrick’s Mountain, a “delightfully edgy novel” that is “a marvel of light and dark.”

His most recent book is a memoir titled The Way of a Gardener: A Life’s Journey. Spiced with irreverence and an eye for the absurd, it describes his personal pilgrimage from a childhood of strict Irish Catholicism in Britain, through eight years of training in a monastic seminary, then the social upheavals of the 1960’s, to a new life of symbiosis with the earth that is as profoundly spiritual as past religious rituals. The memoir ranges over environmental activism, Aboriginal rights, writing for a living, amateur wood butchery, the protocols of small community living, and the devilish obscenity of a billy goat at stud.

Over the years Des has contributed countless articles on environmental issues, gardening and rural living to a wide variety of publications in Canada and the United States, including seven years as gardening columnist for the Globe and Mail. He has been listed as one of the most influential personalities in the Canadian gardening scene, and has appeared on a variety of regional and national television and radio programs. He’s a celebrated speaker, having performed at numerous conferences, schools, festivals, botanical gardens, art galleries, garden shows and wilderness gatherings in Canada and the U.S. He has hosted tours of the gardens of Ireland, New Zealand, China, and England. As well, he’s been active for many years in environmental and social justice issues, including co-organizing the civil disobedience campaign in Strathcona Provincial Park in 1988 and getting arrested at Clayoquot Sound in 1993. He worked for several years in the 70’s and early 80’s as a land claim consultant for two Indian bands in north-central B.C. and was a founding director of a community land trust on Denman Island.

Events featuring Des Kennedy:

1. 1.Solo Session 11:15 a.m.  - 12:15 p.m. Saturday, July 17 at the Back Hall
   

2. 2.Main Stage Event (Passages: Time and Place, with host Bill Richardson, also featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Zsuzsi Gartner and Brian Brett) 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Sunday, July 18 at the Community Hall.