Paul Nicholas Mason is an English-born Canadian novelist, playwright, and actor. Mason's first novel, Battered Soles, was published by Turnstone Press in 2005. The novel celebrates a fictional pilgrimage from Peterborough, Ontario, to the small village of Lakefield, where there is, Mason asserts, a statue of a blue-skinned Jesus with healing powers in the basement of St. John's Anglican Church. "Mason blends fiction with reality as he writes about taking this fictional pilgrimage...one weekend in July, 2003. By the time he takes this journey, it has become a mainstay tourist attraction." In July 2005 the real-world rector of St. John's posted a notice advising confused tourists that there was no such statue in the basement of the church, but that "anyone wishing an encounter with the living Christ" should join the congregation at Sunday services. The tone of the novel is comic: "More comedy than satire, it resounds of Horace rather than of Juvenal; Chaucer rather than Swift; Leacock rather than Richler "—but there are some moments of genuine pathos. It was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2005. Mason's second novel, The Red Dress, was published by Turnstone in 2008. The story of a seventeen-year-old young man growing up poor and confused in rural Ontario, it is significantly darker than Battered Soles, but the ending is cautiously hopeful. The Red Dress is set in a village called Greenfield, but the landmarks and features of the community suggest that Mason has blended Lakefield, Ontario with Barriefield, just outside the city of Kingston. The Red Dress was long-listed for the 2009 ReLit award. Mason's third novel, The Night Drummer, was published by Vancouver's Now or Never in January 2015. It is the story of two teenage friends—white middle-class Peter Ellis, and Otis James, a native boy adopted by an evangelical Christian couple old enough to be his grandparents. Peter and Otis grow up in small town Ontario in the 1970s, and the novel follows them through their high school years. "As Ellis sleeplessly anticipates his high school’s looming 25-year reunion, his recollections balance moments of encroaching darkness with plenty of joyous light," says Publishers Weekly. "Ellis’s memories of first loves and jobs and an endearingly oddball assortment of friends, including Otis, a preternaturally wise and kind Ojibwe boy adopted by devout Caucasian parents, give this portrait a welcome sweetness that draws attention to the innocence, sheer possibility, and blithe lightheartedness of youth." A later review in the Autumn 2017 issue of The Link reads, "The 1970s were a vibrant time of progressive change, and with its evocation of growing up in that wonderful era The Night Drummer makes for fascinating and entertaining reading. Highly recommended." The book is endorsed by former American poet laureate Billy Collins, the CBC's national correspondent Duncan McCue, and the poet Kimmy Beach. Mason has published two plays, The Discipline Committee and Circles of Grace, which have been produced in Canada, Ireland and the United States. His play Sister Camille's Kaleidoscopic Cabaret won the Christians in Theatre ArtsFull Length Play award in 1996, and premiered in Michigan in 1998. Mason's work is characterized by what one reviewer calls its "fragile optimism". His plays and novels are informed by Christian belief, but are sometimes mildly profane. Now or Never published Mason's first children's book, A Pug Called Poppy, in the fall of 2017. A fourth novel, The Rogue Wave, is to be published in 2021. Mason began a new career in 2015 as a voice-, television- and film-actor. He has roles in the feature filmsSuper Detention, A Witches' Ball, Santa's Castle, Christmas with a Prince, Christmas with a Prince: Becoming Royal, A Christmas in Paris, Hometown Holiday, Love by Accident, A Dog in Paris, The Customer, Behanding, The Mechanical Boy, Bloodslinger, Darts and Speak Your Mind. He also has a small principal role in the CBS television seriesBlood & Treasure. and appears in single episodes of Disasters at Sea, The Kennedys, Man Seeking Woman, Anne with an E, Bushwhackers, and ESL, and in three episodes of Ponysitters Club.
