Michael Van Rooy

Michael Van Rooy wrote for documentaries, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet, and in 2009 won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. His first book, An Ordinary Decent Criminal, won the 2006 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Writer, was a finalist for the Margaret Laurance Award for Fiction and has been optioned by Big Mind Films to make a full-length feature film.

In 2010 Michael released his third novel in the Monty Haaviko series, A Criminal to Remember.

Before settling on a writing career, Michael studied history at the University of Manitoba and was a restaurant manager, bartender, fishing guide, card dealer, news editor, cheesemaker, and federal prisoner. He uses all this experience to inform his writing. Michael was born in Kamloops, BC, and grew up in Winnipeg, MB. He died in 2011.