Louise Penny was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, at the 2:00 p.m. ceremony on Friday, June 16, “in recognition of her career as an award winning broadcaster and detective fiction author.”
Born in Toronto in 1958, Louise Penny became a journalist with CBC Radio, specializing in hard news and current affairs. She left CBC Radio Montreal’s noon program in order to focus on writing with the support of her husband V. Michael Whitehead.
Since then, Penny has written 12 books in a mystery series set around the life of Armand Gamache, fictional Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec. The first, Still Life, was published in 2005. Translated into 23 languages, the novels have won or been shortlisted for most of the major crime fiction awards, including the American Edgars and Agathas, the United Kingdom Gold Dagger and the Canadian Arthur Ellis.
Penny and her husband founded a Canadian literary prize aimed at encouraging emerging writers. Her novels are international bestsellers topping, among others, the New York Times and Globe and Mail lists.